TeleSUR correspondent Brian Mier reports on the local elections in Brazil, in which voters will choose Mayors, Vice Mayors and Councillors in all 5,569 municipalities.
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00:00For more details on Brazil's local election day, we go with our correspondent Bram Meir.
00:05Let's listen.
00:07Today is local election day in Brazil.
00:10And in all 5,569 municipalities,
00:14millions of people are coming out to the polls to choose their next mayors, vice mayors,
00:19and over 50,000 city councilors.
00:23So far today, voters have been trickling in and out of the voting center that I'm in,
00:28in Recife, in the Casa Forte neighborhood.
00:31There were big lines before the polls opened at 8 a.m.
00:34Since then, since the lunch hours hit, things are beginning to trickle down a little bit.
00:38This is a tendency that happens all over the world in elections.
00:42There have been isolated cases of corruption and political violence across the country.
00:49Police announced that they've arrested 77 people,
00:53many of them involved in vote-buying schemes.
00:57In Rio de Janeiro, a group of men were apprehended with 62,000 reais and firearms,
01:03trying to influence the elections in Nilopolis.
01:06In all, police say they've seized over 9 million reais a day
01:10in money that was decent to purchase votes, mainly in smaller cities.
01:15It's an old tradition in Brazil.
01:17It used to be much more widespread when I first moved here in 1991.
01:21Things have been improving, but it's still a problem in many places.
01:25Now, across the country, some races are really heating up.
01:29In some cases, like in Rio de Janeiro, incumbent Eduardo Paes is expected to win in the first round.
01:35All cities over 200,000 go to a second round if no candidate gets over 50% of the vote.
01:42And that seems to be the case that's brewing up in the largest city in the country,
01:47São Paulo, where the three main candidates, two far-right reactionaries,
01:52including incumbent mayor Ricardo Nunes and a former YouTube coach
01:57who's very popular named Pablo Marçal,
02:00are in a statistical tie with housing movement leader from the PSOL party, Guilherme Boulos.
02:08That race is supposed to go to the second term.
02:11And in thousands of other races across the country,
02:15they're going to find out by the end of the night who their next mayor is here in Brazil.