Alexandre Kalil, from PSD, is reelected mayor of Belo Horizonte | Minas Gerais

• See the count in Belo Horizonte

Bruno Engler (PRTB) came in second with 9.95% (122,913 votes). João Vitor Xavier (Citizenship) came in third place, with 9.22% (113,857). And Áurea Carolina came in fourth place, with 8.33% (102,833).

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The election in Belo Horizonte had 28.34% abstention, 4.25% white votes and 6.87% invalid votes. In 2016, according to the TSE, abstention in the capital of Minas Gerais was 21.66%.

Alexandre Kalil is 61 years old, married, a businessman and has incomplete higher education. He has declared assets of R $ 3,689,634.19 and has been president of Atlético-MG. The runner-up is Fuad Noman from PSD, 73 years old.

Both are part of the “Courage and Work” coalition, made up of the MDB, DC, PP, PV, REDE, AVANTE, PSD and PDT parties.

Kalil voted for the Central State, in the neighborhood of Lourdes, in the Center-South region of the capital, this Sunday morning.

“This city is not a joke, we have to do a lot. So God help us,” he told reporters. Then he went home, where he followed the result of the count.

Since the beginning of the elections, the candidate has led all the polls. In the last one, broadcast by Ibope this Saturday (14), it appeared with 72% of the valid votes. João Vitor Xavier came in second place, with 9%.

In the 2016 election, Kalil ran for political office for the first time. He was elected mayor of Belo Horizonte with 52.98% of the votes, beating João Leite (PSDB), who obtained 47.02%. He had previously been a pre-candidate for state deputy, in 2014, when he left the elections.

“He ended up drunk, he ended up with mortadella, the talk is now kibbeh,” Kalil said after the result of the first election, referring to his Syrian-Lebanese ancestry.

In the period 2017-2020 he faced two great challenges: rainy periods and the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2018, Kalil acknowledged that there were errors in the project presented to end the flooding on Avenida Vilarinho, which gives access to the North and Venda Nova regions.

In 2019, when Cristina Pereira Matos, 40, and her daughter, Sofia Pereira, 6, died on this avenue during a storm, Kalil said it was their responsibility. “The mayor is guilty of two deaths and one missing person. You don’t know how the mayor’s heart hurts, ”he said at the time.

In 2020, Belo Horizonte had the rainiest January in history. Throughout the month, several storms hit the city, causing 13 deaths, floods, landslides and destruction of streets and avenues.

On three occasions in the last two years, Kalil has announced flood containment works on Avenida Vilarinho. Last Friday (13), the section was flooded again, dragging cars and leaving people stranded.

This year, the world is facing the coronavirus pandemic. Belo Horizonte was one of the first Brazilian capitals to close trade, in March of this year, and allow only essential services to function.

The flexibility was carried out in stages, taking into account different epidemiological markers. Many merchants did not like the measures taken by the mayor and several demonstrations were held during the pandemic.

“God saved me from fear,” Kalil said in July, while advocating for social isolation measures at BH.

The city did not adhere to the state government’s Conscious Mines program and this created an impasse in the courts in August.

Belo Horizonte has exceeded 50,000 patients infected by Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest epidemiological bulletin released by the city. In total, 1,551 people died from the disease in the capital.

Find out everything about the first round of the 2020 elections: