And if you have a problem, you can always file a lawsuit — at the Sarney Costa Courthouse.

But all the visible celebration of Mr. Sarney now stands in sharp contrast to the way the patriarch, 84, and his offspring are widely perceived both in Maranhão, one of Brazil’s poorest states, and the rest of Brazil.

Image Mr. Sarney has said he will not seek re-election, clearing the way for a major shift in power in the state. Credit... Fernando Bizerra Jr./E.P.A.

Voters ousted Mr. Sarney’s political loyalists in Maranhão in state elections in October, and Mr. Sarney, long one of Brazil’s most powerful men from his perch in the Senate, announced that he would not seek re-election, possibly opening the way for one of the more profound shifts in Brazilian politics in recent years.

“The last great colonels of Brazil are finally in decline,” said Rodrigo Lago, a lawyer and transparency activist, using the term for the strongmen asserting power over big areas of Brazil, largely here in the nation’s poor northeast.

“If Maranhão can change, then oligarchies elsewhere can be curbed in this country,” he added.

Powerful dynasties elsewhere in Brazil are showing signs of strain. In Paraíba, another northeast state, the son of Ronaldo Cunha Lima, a former governor who infamously shot his predecessor in a crowded restaurant in 1993 without ever serving time for attempted murder, lost a bid for governor this year.