Although traditionally fast and efficient, the electronic vote count from Brazil’s local municipal elections last Sunday was delayed by more than three and a half hours. Yet this alarming development did not prevent the electorate’s general mood from making itself clear well before midnight: President Jair Bolsonaro and the far right suffered the worst defeats of the day.

Seven mayors of major capitals were elected outright, avoiding a runoff, including in Florianópolis and Curitiba, in the south; Belo Horizonte, in the southeast; Salvador and Natal, in northeast; and Campo Grande and Palmas in the mid-west. Each of these mayors hail from right-wing parties, but none were supported directly by the president and his sons.

Of twenty-seven state capitals, eighteen held mayoral elections. Only three had candidates directly identified with the neo-fascist president; these included Capitão Wagner in Fortaleza in the northeastern state of Ceará, Delegado Pazolini in Vitória in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo, and in Rio de Janeiro, where the incumbent mayor Marcelo Crivella, the bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, is running for reelection. Results indicate that only Pazolini may emerge victorious in the second round (the incumbent Crivella scraped into the runoff with just 21.86 percent of the vote).