The political map defined in October and which begins to be put into practice from January 1st shows a complete reformulation in the political forces in the main cities in the interior and coast of São Paulo, with a total emptying of and an initial hegemony of and Republicans .
The first is the party of Gilberto Kassab, Government Secretary in the administration of , which is part of the second party. Together, they elected 7 of the 10 mayors in the largest cities in the interior and coast.
While the PSD won , , and , the Republicans took , —both in the first round— and . The other three city halls were with PL (), União Brasil () and MDB (Praia Grande).
Compared to the electoral scenario four years ago, the change is radical. In the same 10 locations, 5 city halls were won at the time by the PSDB, a party that was almost swept from the polls in October. In 2020, the Republicans won in the two most populous cities in the interior, with Dário Saadi in Campinas and Rodrigo Manga in Sorocaba, and MDB, DEM and Patriota took one municipality each.
“A strong party is very important. A strong party does a lot of good for city halls, especially those that are larger, because they are city halls that have greater complexity. A city like Ribeirão Preto has many challenges, and being in a large, consolidated party, like the PSD, it is a facilitator so that the mayor can have a good relationship with the state and federal governments”, said the elected mayor of Ribeirão, Ricardo Silva, from the PSD.
The municipality of 698 thousand inhabitants will be the largest in São Paulo governed by Kassab’s party, in a victory achieved literally in the last ballot counted by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court). In , Ricardo defeated businessman Marco Aurélio Martins (Novo) by a difference of just 687 votes.
Ribeirão is one of the cities still governed by toucans –, according to the national vice-president of the party –, but which exemplifies the setback suffered by the party at the polls.
After governing the municipality for 16 of the last 28 years, the PSDB was unable to launch its own candidacy and supported former councilor André Trindade (União Brasil), who obtained only 10.98% of the valid votes, finishing in fourth place. Nogueira must leave the party, and one of the possibilities is to migrate to União Brasil, focusing on the 2026 election.
The last weeks of his government were marked by a controversy involving the construction of an administrative center in the city, with an estimated cost of R$175 million.
Ricardo went to court and the TJ-SP (São Paulo Court of Justice) suspended the start of works on the 18th. The following day, the city council managed to overturn the injunction that prevented the construction of the center, which will be called Prefeito Doutor Antônio Duarte Nogueira, father of the current manager and twice head of the municipal Executive (1969-1973 and 1977-1983).
The elected official also stated that a pool of parties also formed by MDB, PP and PL —all based on Tarcísio— gives a lot of electoral strength in a state dispute but that, despite this, he also sought dialogue with the president’s government (PT).
Together, these ten mayors will govern 5.75 million inhabitants, or 13% of the 44.4 million São Paulo residents distributed across 645 municipalities.
The scenario of PSDB’s collapse did not only occur in the largest municipalities. In Baixada Santista, the toucans came to govern 7 of the 9 cities, but in 2024 they only became councilors in three municipalities.
The precipitous drop is explained because, four years ago, the party dominated the state government with , which had already occurred since the first state victory of Mário Covas (1930-2001), in 1994. Tarcísio’s defeat in 2022, however, The party fell apart in the interior of the state, and mayors migrated to other parties.
This took place mainly in the direction of , Tarcísio’s main political articulator, and in small municipalities, more dependent on state and federal resources.
Kassab, like his party, became the preferred target of the former president’s offensives, as both sought to consolidate themselves as the party with the largest number of city halls in the 2024 elections.
Better for the current secretary of Tarcísio, who won 205 city halls, almost 1 in every 3 in São Paulo, compared to the 66 in the 2020 election —.
The PSDB, of the 180 obtained four years ago, now only won in 21. After electing toucans in 2020, in October.
Although it won the two most populous cities in the interior, Campinas and Sorocaba, the Republicans of Tarcísio are third on the list of city halls that they will administer from January 1st. Of the 23 victories four years ago, there were now 82, behind Bolsonaro’s PL, which advanced from 41 to 104.
