In October 2024 C.E., Brazil’s municipal elections produced a historic result: 256 Indigenous candidates were elected to positions ranging from mayor to city councilor, the highest total in the country’s recorded electoral history. The milestone reflects years of organized political effort by Indigenous communities and sets the stage for even greater representation in the 2026 C.E. state and federal elections.
At a glance
- Indigenous representation: A total of 256 Indigenous people were elected across all Brazilian regions — mayors, vice mayors, and city councilors — an 8% increase over the 236 elected in 2020 C.E.
- Voter mobilization: Some 2,506 Indigenous candidates from 169 distinct ethnic groups received 1,635,530 votes, up from 2,212 candidates representing 71 groups four years earlier.
- Political momentum: Indigenous candidates were the only demographic group that recorded vote growth in the 2024 C.E. elections, while candidates across all other self-declared racial categories saw a combined decline of roughly 20%.
Why municipal office matters for Indigenous communities
Municipal governments in Brazil control a wide range of public services — schools, health clinics, sanitation, and local infrastructure. For Indigenous communities that have historically been underserved by these systems, having elected representatives inside city halls and councils is a direct path to better and more culturally respectful service delivery.
“There are a lot of public services under the responsibility of municipalities, so obviously having representation in the city hall or city council makes it much easier,” said Cleber Buzatto, of the southern regional coordination of the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples. He added that Indigenous representatives also bring supervisory and political influence that changes how services reach communities.
Advocates at the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the country’s primary Indigenous association, see municipal gains as a foundation for climbing higher. The more Indigenous people seated in local government, the stronger the pipeline for state assembly and congressional seats in 2026 C.E.
Historic firsts and the women leading them
Among the most striking individual results: Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina state and a city founded 351 years ago, elected its first-ever Indigenous city councilor. Ingrid Sateré Mawé, a biologist, educator, and former environmental activist born in Manaus, won her seat with 3,430 votes under the campaign slogan “For women, for the climate and for the future.”
“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,” she said. “Beyond starting a process of historical reparation, it’s bringing to light that we really do exist and resist.”
Ingrid Sateré Mawé’s path to office included teaching biology and mathematics, training non-Indigenous teachers in Indigenous history and culture, monitoring the environmental impact of large development projects near Guarani territories, and serving as a special adviser to the Bancada do Cocar — the Feathered Headdress Caucus — in Brazil’s National Congress. Her planned priorities for her 2025–2028 C.E. term include protecting archaeological sites and expanding public services that disproportionately affect women.
In northeastern Paraíba state, Ellys Sônia Oliveira Gomes da Silva — known as Ninha — of the Potiguara people became the only Indigenous woman elected mayor in the entire country, winning the municipality of Marcação. She succeeded her own cousin, Eliselma Oliveira, who held the same office after the 2020 C.E. elections. All nine of Marcação’s newly elected city councilors self-declared Indigenous.
“The Indigenous people have been oppressed their entire lives, without representation,” Ninha said. “It’s very important that today we have a woman, an Indigenous manager who knows the needs of our people very well and who will fight for our rights, defending our culture, our language, our traditions.”
Progress measured honestly
The overall numbers mark genuine progress, but they also reveal how far representation still needs to travel. Of nine Indigenous mayors elected, only one was a woman. Women accounted for four of nine vice mayors and just 36 of 234 councilor seats — a gender gap APIB flagged as a continuing concern.
There are structural obstacles too. Dinamam Tuxá, APIB’s executive coordinator for the northeast and two southeastern states, called on the Superior Electoral Court to ensure that Indigenous candidacies receive dedicated electoral fund support to level the playing field. Buzatto pointed out that some Indigenous candidates are running under — and being elected by — parties that actively oppose Indigenous collective rights in the National Congress, partly because left-leaning parties aligned with Indigenous causes hold minority status in many smaller municipalities. Addressing this, he said, requires deeper ideological political training for candidates and stronger structural backing from parties.
Still, the trajectory is clear. Following the 2022 C.E. elections that sent Sonia Guajajara and Célia Xakriabá to the National Congress as federal deputies, and now with a record class of municipal officials taking office, Brazil’s Indigenous political movement is building a ladder — rung by rung — toward the representation that communities have long demanded and earned.
As Ingrid Sateré Mawé put it: “We are fully aware that we are often just an instrument in this process” — a statement not of resignation but of long-view strategy, rooted in what she calls “ancestral support” that other candidates simply do not carry with them into office.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Mongabay
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Indigenous land rights and 160 million hectares ahead of COP30
- U.K. cancer death rates down to their lowest level on record
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Brazil
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