About 129 million Brazilian voters went to the polls Sunday morning to elect mayors and 52,137 councilors at 5,563 municipalities.
The elections began at 8 a.m. local time (1100 GMT) and concluded at 5 p.m. (2000 GMT), the Brazilian Electoral Superior Tribunal (TSE) said.
Because of time differences, in the municipalities of Acre, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rondonia and Roraima, voting sites opened till 7 p.m. of Brasilia's time (2200 GMT).
TSE President Carlos Ayres Britto said that vote counting in the capitals of the states will finish at 10 p.m. local time (0100GMT Monday), while the final result in all the municipalities will be announced at midnight.
People started queuing at the voting sites, mostly schools, since early Sunday morning, and each voter would have some 40 seconds to vote at the electronic boxes, said the TSE.
Some 380,000 candidates, mainly from the four main traditional parties, contended for the positions in the elections: namely Party of the Workers (PT), Party of the Democratic Movement (PMDB),and opposition parties Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) and rightist Democrat Party (DEM).
Britto said that 101 candidates were detained around the country for different reasons, one hour before the voting ended.
He said that most of the cases were related to illegal acts at the voting sites such as imposing pressure upon voters.
According to the TSE, problems were found in 1,212 electronic voting boxes and had to be replaced.
The elections will appoint at least 5,486 governors. The 77 cities with more than 200,000 electors could go to a second round of election, in case that any candidate receives the half plus one of the valid votes.
Meanwhile, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cast his vote at Sao Bernardo do Campo in Gran Sao Paulo, where he began as a union workers' leader in late 1970s.
After voting, Lula said: "(the electoral process) allows the Brazilian people to practice democracy. I work all the day with the perspective that the people understand the importance of the vote and the political change that is happening, not only in Brazil but on all the Latin American continent."
Voting is obligatory in Brazil, the TSE said.
Source:Xinhua
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