Brazil's ruling party hopes to double mayoral positions in municipal elections
With its eye on the next presidential election in 2006, Brazil's ruling Workers' Party (PT)hopes to double its number of mayors as 120 million Brazilians cast their votes on Sunday in the nationwide municipal elections.

A total of 15,781 candidates are running for mayor in 5,562 cities. Around 120 million out of Brazil's 180 million people willalso choose 51,802 city councilors from 346,373 candidates.

Analysts say the elections will be the first test of how the electorate views the government's performance, and will have a great influence on the general elections in two years.

In the last municipal elections four years ago, the PT won 204 mayoral positions. The party has said it hopes to increase the number to at least 400 in the current elections.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cast his ballot shortly after polls opened in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city. Winning big cities is important for Lula because mayors are important power brokers for the 2006 elections, when Lula will face reelection.

Sao Paulo, a city of 10 million and the country's industrial and financial center, is the big prize for both the ruling and opposition parties. PT Mayor Marta Suplicy and opposition Social Democratic Party candidate Jose Serra were tied with 40 percent of the vote, according to a poll by the Ibope institute.

In Rio de Janeiro, the country's second-largest city, incumbent Mayor Cesar Maia from the opposition Liberal Front Party was reelected.

Early results indicated that the PT has retained the mayor's seat in three state capitals -- Belo Horizonte, Recife, and Aracaju -- and is likely to head to a second round in at least four others: Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Macapa and Goiania.

Voting is mandatory in Brazil for anybody over 18 and optional for those between 16 and 18. Cities with more than 200,000 registered voters may have to have a runoff election on Oct. 31, if none of the candidates for mayor receives more than 50 percent of the vote.
 

Opposition party confident of winning Mexican presidential elections
Mexico's opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said on Saturday it will win the 2006 presidential elections, local media reported Saturday.

The party has been strengthened as it recently achieved victories in the governorship elections in the states of Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Durango, PRI President Roberto Madrazo noted.

He said Mexican President Vicente Fox's government of center-right National Action Party (PAN) "already is on its way out of the presidency."

The PRI ruled over Mexico since 1929 and was removed from the presidency after the victory of Fox in 2000.

Madrazo runs second in a recent poll, still far behind Andres Lopez, mayor of Mexico City, but Lopez has not announced whether he will contend in the coming elections.

PAN's most likely candidate is Interior Minister Santiago Creel, who stands third in the opinion poll.

Madrazo also said his party will install Sergio Guerrero, former governor of Durango, and Patricio Martinez, outgoing governor of Chihuahua, as assistant secretary-generals to its presidency in order to "consolidate itself as the first national political force."

Martinez was appointed because of his awareness on the situation of the Mexican border with the United States and the Mexican-US relations, Madrazo added.