The polls gave, in the second round of the 2024 municipal electionsa message: the right has loomed large. And its strength will be tested in 2026 when it will be time to choose the next president of Brazil.
The victory of Ricardo Nunes (MDB) about Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) at the polls this Sunday (27) is the emblem of this wave that had already shown signs of its size in the 1st round.
The “Centrão”, a block of parties that lean more to the right than for the left, it will manage more than half of the country’s city halls from 2025 onwards.
Ricardo Nunes not only won the chance to command São Paulo, the largest city in Latin America, for another four years. His victory is the thermometer for the articulation that seeks to catapult Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) as the representative of the right in the next presidential contest, since the former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) is ineligible.
The governor of São Paulo was Nunes’ biggest campaigner — Bolsonaro barely appeared in the re-elected mayor’s campaign. Tarcísio was not bothered by the adventures by Pablo Marçal (PRTB) in the first round (which divided the right in this election) and knew how to construct a narrative that people from São Paulo, especially those from the outskirts, would win with the “Nunes-Tarcísio” double.
“With the re-election of Nunes, the right has more support and gives strength to Tarcísio for 2026. If the PT wants to continue (in power) it will have to make a course correction”, emphasizes Roberto Troster, economist at the Institute of Economic Intelligence.
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Tarcísio personifies what the new right in the country wants to be: more pragmatic and less populist. And the implications of this are not just political. All eyes are on what this way of governing reflects on the economy.
“Nunes and Tarcísio have a meritocratic and entrepreneurial vision. They defend privatization and labor flexibility”, says Pedro Fassoni Arruda, political scientist and professor at PUC-SP.
Throughout his campaign, Nunes showed that he is the candidate of the “liberal economy”, who eliminates taxes, “hunts” the fine industry and attracts companies. Tarcísio has already fulfilled a promise made by his government: privatized Sabesp, a São Paulo sanitation company.
In the city of São Paulo, Nunes has a direct relationship with representatives of the real estate sector in the City Council. These are more flexible in discussions linked to the Master Plan (mechanism that structures the city’s development) and the Zoning Law (which regulates which activities can be carried out in a given region of the city).
Tarcísio has declared support from business sectors, civil construction and Fiesp (entity that represents industry in São Paulo), just to name a few. “If on the one hand the left has the support of the unions, the right has the support of these entities”, summarizes Arruda.
Knowing what government officials think is fundamental to understanding what will be prioritized in public investments in their administration. The city of São Paulo, for example, will have the largest budget in its history in 2025: almost R$120 billion.
And there’s no shortage of problems. The mapped street population is already close to 80 thousand, children in the early years of basic education have a learning deficit and the queue for consultations and exams only grows.
National issues
If the city of São Paulo has the status of a “country”, Nunes and Boulos lacked input into debates involving more national issues, like the current Selic levelthe basic interest rate for the Brazilian economy, analysts say.
“The size of the interest rate, still very high, harms business, commerce and investments in São Paulo and the country. This could have been debated by the candidates”, says Odilon Guedes Pinto Júnior, vice-president of the São Paulo Regional Economic Council (Corecon-SP).
For the representative of Corecon-SP, Guilherme Boulos missed the chance to highlight that the unemployment is downinflation still remains within the target and the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) grows above expectations as a result of the government of its greatest ally, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).
But in a municipal election, the city’s most immediate problems stand out, with a more pragmatic electorate and less ideological votes, recalls political scientist Pedro Fassoni Arruda. “If Lula had more votes than Bolsonaro in the capital of São Paulo two years ago, and Nunes won now, it is clear that Lula’s voters voted for Nunes”, says the expert.
The governability and the future of the Lula administration, in the analysis of the PUC-SP specialist, depend more on the correlation of forces in the National Congress. “In this case, the election for the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies is more decisive,” he says.
Before thinking about 2026, the current government will need Congress to approve measures in 2025, which will be fundamental in attracting investments. There are deadlines for implementing taxes (IBS e CBS); commitments related to sustainability, such as the carbon market law; and the reduction of the tax burden on salaries.
“It is a very large set of measures that will depend on strong negotiation between the government and Congress”, highlights Welber Barral, partner at BMJ, an institutional relations consultancy.
