Recife: Campos Elected Youngest Mayor of a Capital City at 27

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The fierce dispute saw family squabbles, left-wing splits and many lawsuits. Break-up between the PSB (Brazilian Socialist Party) and the PT (Workers’ Party) is expected to reverberate nationwide.

At 27, João Campos (PSB) has been elected the youngest mayor of a capital (Recife, in this case) in the country’s history. He beat his opponent and cousin, PT’s Marília Arraes, by a margin of over 100,000 votes.

The victory of Eduardo Campos’ son and Miguel Arraes’ great-grandson means an overwhelming defeat for the PT, which broke with the local PSB to launch Marília’s candidacy. The feud between the two left-wing parties is seen as irreversible and should reverberate at the national level for the 2022 election.

Considered the “capital of the Northeast,” Recife has raised icons of national politics and become the embodiment of the split that currently prevails in the Brazilian left-wing – Ciro Gomes (PDT – Democratic Labour Party), Marina Silva (Rede – Sustainability Network) and Flávio Dino (PCdoB – Communist Party of Brazil) supported João Campos (PSB), while Fernando Haddad (PT), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Guilherme Boulos (PSOL – Socialism and Liberty Party) showed support for Marília (PT).

In one of this year’s fiercest disputes, Campos and Marília engaged in a heated debate involving family issues, reciprocal accusations of corruption and dozens of lawsuits.

Shortly after the first round, Marília managed to overtake Campos in the electoral polls, but her rise was contained after evangelical leaders took action in favor of the PSB candidate. On TV, Campos exploited a statement by Marília against the reading of the Bible in the City Hall, and apocryphal pamphlets were distributed in temples, saying that “anyone who is a Christian does not vote for Marília”.

In recent days, the PT candidate tried to counteract this religious uprising – on Sunday, November 29th, she met with more progressive evangelical leaders and went to Mass in a Catholic Church. But it was already too late.

The capital of Pernambuco has been experiencing a derby-like atmosphere between the Reds (PT) and Yellows (PSB) over the past week. The clash aroused the interest of a large part of the population who took to the streets with flags, pamphlets and motorcades. Campos’ victory over Marília was celebrated with fireworks in several parts of the city.

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