With Lula’s fragmented base and the right divided, the pre-candidates for the capital of Minas Gerais are still seeking the support of Zema, current governor, and Rodrigo Pacheco, president of the Senate and probable opponent at the helm of the state in 2026
Six months before the elections, none of the 11 pre-candidates for mayor of Belo Horizonte are favored in the dispute. The scenario is marked by the fragmentation of the parties that support President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and a mayor with little electoral experience who is still trying to make himself known among the 2.3 million inhabitants of Belo Horizonte. Bolsonarism has united around a single candidate, but the right is also divided.
Fuad Noman (PSD), current head of the local executive, was the deputy of then mayor Alexandre Kalil (PSD), who resigned from his post to run for the government of Minas Gerais in 2022. Before then, he had never contested a election, much less did he lead a ticket, as will happen in October, despite having a political career linked to the PSDB. An economist by training, Noman was executive secretary of the Civil House in the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and later held senior positions in the governments of Aécio Neves and Antonio Anastasia in Minas Gerais.
The mayor’s candidacy for re-election was not unanimous, not even within the PSD. To pacify the party and consolidate himself, Noman fired at the beginning of the week four municipal secretaries appointed by Marcelo Aro (PP), an ally of governor Romeu Zema (Novo) and state secretary of the Civil House. The movement has the 2026 elections as its backdrop: the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD), is seen as a natural candidate for the government of Minas and would have as an opponent a name proposed by Zema’s group.
The governor is an electoral leader contested by right-wing candidates, but is moving towards supporting the pre-candidacy of Luisa Barreto (Novo), secretary of Planning of the government of Minas Gerais, who also has her political trajectory linked to the PSDB, the party for which she ran in 2020 and finished in seventh place with 1.39% of the votes.
Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) are trying to convince Zema to support the state MP’s candidacy Bruno Engler (PL), who came second in the last mayoral elections with 9.9% of the votes. Currently in his second term, he is one of the former president’s closest Bolsonaro supporters in the state and, before entering institutional politics in 2018, he was coordinator of the Direita Minas movement. Engler also has the support of Nikolas Ferreira (PL), the most voted federal deputy in the history of Minas Gerais, with 1.5 million votes.
The senator’s interlocutors Carlo Viana (Podemos) also contacted the governor’s allies seeking support for his pre-candidacy. Viana tries to make a right-wing candidacy viable, but detached from Bolsonarism, with which he broke because he felt betrayed by Bolsonaro in 2022. He ran for governor through the PL, but the former president made several gestures to Zema during the campaign.
The senator is also trying to obtain the support of former mayor Kalil, considered the only electoral leader capable of rivaling the strength of Lula and Bolsonaro in the capital of Minas Gerais. Kalil has not yet indicated with whom he will deposit his chips.
In the centre-right, former state deputy João Leite (PSDB) was launched as a pre-candidate by the Tucanos. He failed to be re-elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2022, but the party hopes that he will repeat his good performance in 2016, when he was narrowly defeated by Kalil in the second round.
Last month, the MDB joined the president of the City Council, Gabriele Azevedo. Although at the national level the party has ministries in the Lula government, the pre-candidate’s goal is to try to break the polarization between PT and Bolsonaro supporters in the capital of Minas Gerais. Azevedo began his political career in the PSDB, he was allied with Aécio, but broke with the Tucanos during the Anastasia government, in 2013. He then crossed over to the now extinct PHS and Patriota.
The PSOL-Rede federation will also have its own candidate. The favorite is the state deputy Beautiful Goncalves (PSOL), former city councilor of Belo Horizonte. However, the Network maintains the pre-candidacy of the state deputy Ana Paula Siqueira (Rede), which recently received the support of Marina Silva, Minister of the Environment.
Consult the list of pre-candidates, in alphabetical order:
- Ana Paula Siqueira (Rede), State Representative
- Bella Gonçalves (PSOL), State Deputy
- Bruno Engler (PL), state deputy
- Duda Salabert (PDT), federal deputy
- Fuad Noman (PSD), mayor of Belo Horizonte
- Gabriel Azevedo (MDB), president of the City Council
- João Leite (PSDB), former state deputy
- Luísa Barreto (Novo), Planning Secretary of the Government of Minas Gerais
- Paulo Brant (PSB), former deputy governor of Minas Gerais
- Rogério Correia (PT), federal deputy
Source: Terra
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