Municipal elections held across Brazil on Sunday delivered at least one upset late in the evening as Marta Suplicy, candidate for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party, saw her lead in opinion polls close to vanishing.

Ms Suplicy had Mr Lula da Silva’s explicit backing, something widely assumed to assure her if not of outright victory, at least of certainty of going into a run-off at the end of the month with a clear lead.