People enter a polling station in Sao Paulo during Brazil's municipal runoff elections on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's candidates suffered further defeats Sunday and the traditional center-right emerged stronger in municipal runoff elections seen as a gauge of where things stand in Brazilian politics ahead of presidential polls in 2022.

Brazil's biggest cities, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, both elected experienced center-right mayors - incumbent Bruno Covas and returning veteran Eduardo Paes, respectively - as the candidates endorsed by Bolsonaro were roundly defeated, according to full official results.

The Brazilian left meanwhile continued to struggle to bounce back from the damaging impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the jailing of her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on corruption charges - the events that paved the way for Bolsonaro's "conservative wave."

The runoff elections "confirmed what we'd already seen in the first-round vote [on November 15]: a defeat for Bolsonaro's camp," said political scientist Leonardo Avritzer of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. "The left meanwhile continues to have enormous difficulties."

AFP