Karla Mendes in Mongabay (thanks to Pam P.)
A record-high number of Indigenous people were elected in Brazil’s recent municipal elections, a key move to ensure the fulfillment of Indigenous rights, public services and assistance and should pave the way to increase the number of Indigenous people elected in the 2026 state and federal ballots, advocates and activists say.
On Oct. 6, 256 Indigenous people were elected mayors, vice mayors and city councilors in all Brazilian regions, an 8% increase compared with 236 elected in the 2020 ballot. In total, 2,506 Indigenous candidates from 169 groups received 1,635,530 votes, up from 2,212 candidates from 71 groups in 2020. Indigenous candidates were the only group that recorded growth in votes this year, compared with candidates who self-declared white, pardo (brown), Black and Asian, which saw a reduction of around 20% altogether, according to a survey from the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the country’s main Indigenous association, which used data from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
After 351 years since its foundation, Florianópolis, capital of the southern state of Santa Catarina, elected its first Indigenous city councilor, Ingrid Sateré Mawé, with 3,430 votes. “This election represents the result of a struggle that has been built for a long time for those of us who are organized as Indigenous women,” Ingrid Sateré Mawé tells Mongabay in a phone interview. “Beyond starting a process of historical reparation, it’s bringing to light that we really do exist and resist.”
Ingrid Sateré Mawé says her election wasn’t “out of the blue.” She was born in Manaus, capital of the Amazonian state of Amazonas, where she says she started as an environmental activist and became part of the student movement. She moved to Florianópolis 18 years ago, where she taught biology and didactics for mathematics, she says, and was a teacher instructor focused on the history and culture of Indigenous peoples for non-Indigenous schools.
She has worked as a biologist and as a “guardian of archaeological sites” assessing and monitoring the impact of large enterprises around the Indigenous territories in the region, especially for the Guarani people, “who are my brothers; we’re from the same linguistic trunk,” the elected city councilor says, adding that this oversight will be prioritized during her 2025-28 term. (continued)