Right-wing candidates ahead in key Brazilian cities - Globo TV exit poll

By Anthony Boadle BRASILIA (Reuters) - Centrist and right-wing candidates took the lead in municipal elections in Brazil's main cities on Sunday, as the leftist Workers Party, or PT, appeared on course to suffer a big setback after the August impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff. The election of mayors and city councils in 5,568 municipalities across Brazil is a test of support for the country's political parties during its worst corruption scandal and deepest recession since the 1930s. Centrist parties allied to President Michel Temer, who succeeded Rousseff in August, are expected to do well. Victory, particularly in Brazil's largest cities, would boost the parties as they prepare for the 2018 presidential race. An exit poll by the Ibope institute showed that millionaire businessman Joao Doria was close to outright victory in the race for mayor of Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, TV Globo's cable news channel reported. Doria, of the centrist Brazilian Social Democratic Party, or PSDB, had 48 percent of the vote, just short of the absolute majority he needs to avoid a runoff on Oct. 30, GloboNews reported. Races for mayor in other major cities appeared headed for a second-round decision, including Rio de Janeiro, where a conservative evangelical bishop and senator, Marcelo Crivella, was leading leftist Marcelo Freixo by 30 percent to 20 percent. Temer's Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or PMDB, is expected to expand its number of mayors and strengthen plans by Brazil's largest political party to win its first presidential election. A Doria victory in Sao Paulo would bolster a likely presidential bid in 2018 by the PSDB governor of the state, Geraldo Alckmin. 'BIG LOSSES' In Sao Paulo, a bastion of anti-Rousseff sentiment, even PT candidates have eschewed the classic red T-shirt of PT supporters to avoid association with the party born in the city's industrial suburbs. "The Workers Party has no presidential alternatives and will suffer big losses," said Claudio Couto, a political scientist at the FGV think tank in Sao Paulo. "The party made a lot of mistakes in recent years and never admitted it was wrong." According to ARKO Advice consultancy in Brasilia, the PT will win only one mayoral race in a state capital city, in Rio Branco, in the small state of Acre on the border with Bolivia. Sunday's elections are the first held under a ban on corporate campaign financing that was meant to clean up Brazilian politics following the massive graft scandal surrounding state-controlled oil company Petrobras. But the new rules, which reduced campaign financing by two-thirds from the local elections in 2014, instead helped wealthy candidates who are using their personal funds, such as Doria, and candidates backed by Brazil's rapidly expanding evangelical churches. [nL8N1C46MM] The elections have generated little enthusiasm among Brazilian voters in a country battling double-digit unemployment and high inflation. Voting is obligatory in Brazil, but many disenchanted voters would rather not cast any ballot. "What's the point? There are no alternatives, look left, look right, all the candidates are corrupt," said Ana da Rocha, a maid who lives in Itapoa on the outskirts of Brasilia. "Once they get elected, they do nothing but look after themselves, so they don't have to work again in their lives," she said. ($1 = 3.2610 Brazilian reais) (Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Jane Merriman and Peter Cooney)