Date: Tuesday, 17 Nov 1992 15:07:34 EST
From: <TPOWER@vma.cc.nd.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.brazil
Subject: Novos prefeitos: RJ e SP

UPI 16.11.92
        RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (UPI) -- Official results from mayoral
elections in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo showed victories for the right
Monday, dashing Benedita da Silva's hopes of becoming Rio's first-ever
black woman mayor.
        But official results from Sunday's elections showed that despite the
two important defeats, left-wing parties made gains in mayoral races in
other cities.
        Conservative Democratic and Social Party candidate Paulo Maluf was
elected the new mayor of Sao Paulo, South America's largest city, taking
52.2 percent of the votes and handing a harsh defeat to the powerful
Workers Party, which had held the post for four years.
        Workers Party candidate Sen. Eduardo Suplicy garnered only 37.7
percent of the vote, while blank or null votes constituted 10.2 percent
of the votes cast.
        ``We are going to improve this city,'' Maluf, a former presidential
candidate, vowed.
        Maluf, a former presidential candidate, has promised to create 40,000
jobs in the recession-hit industrial city of 16 million, which has an
estimated 1.2 million unemployed workers.
        The conservative candidate also appeared to have won a tight race in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second-largest city.
        Brazilian Democratic Movement candidate Cesar Maia dashed hopes of
Workers Party candidate Benedita da Silva's becoming the first black
woman mayor in Brazilian history.
        With 91 percent of the votes counted, Maia led fellow federal
lawmaker Da Silva by just 3.4 percent of the vote. Official results gave
the conservative candidate 44.4 percent of the votes compared to Da
Silva's 41 percent.
        Blank or null votes accounted for 14.7 percent of the vote in Rio de
Janeiro, election officials said.
        ``I won the city of Rio de Janeiro,'' said Maia, who quit his
Democratic Labor Party just before the election to join the powerful
Brazilian Democratic Movement Party.
        Maia's victory was a bitter defeat for Rio mayor and party president
Leonel Brizola, of the center-left, who had asked members of his party
to nullify their votes rather than support the conservative Maia.
        In spite of the conservative victories in Rio de Janeiro and Sao
Paulo, left and center-left parties scored important wins in other
Brazilian cities, winning first-time mayorships in Belo Horizonte,
Salvador, Goiania, Natal, Joao Pessoa and Sao Luis. The left kept the
mayoral post in Porto Alegre.
        Workers Party candidate Patrus Anaias won the mayorship in Belo
Horizonte by 49.6 percent of the vote over Brazilian Democratic Movement
Party candidate Mauricio Campos, who took 34.4 percent of ballots.
        In Porto Alegre, the largest city in Brazil's extreme south, Workers
Party candidate Tarso Genro won with 54.8 percent of the vote followed
by Brazilian Democratic Movement Party hopeful Cesar Schirmer with 35.5
percent of votes.
        Nearly 20 million Brazilians voted in the second half of two-stage
elections Sunday for mayors in 26 cities. The news mayors take office
Jan. 1.