Moving
at Last

Out of the blue, and perhaps for the wrong reasons, Brazil's three biggest political parties have agreed to push forward with a long-awaited political reform. It's not the entire package, and several convoluted and inefficient aspects of the political system will remain untouched for the time being. Still, if all goes according to plans, this is significant—it's the start of a much-needed adjustment that's vital to the country's future.

The agreement involves President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's governing center-left PSDB, and its two main allies, the rightist PFL, and the mostly centrist but at times hard to place on the political spectrum PMDB. An approaching deadline pushed the three parties into action: for any changes to take effect in next year's nationwide municipal elections, they must be approved in Congress by September 30—a full year before the vote in 2000.

Four major changes are on the table, and all converge to accomplish two objectives clearly on the minds of the governing allies: they strengthen larger parties, and weaken or even force out of existence smaller political contingents, often described in Brazil as "rent-a-parties" because of the way they quickly—often suspiciously—attach themselves to their richer, larger, more viable colleagues during a campaign.

Specifically, the four changes being proposed do the following:

* Parties with less than 5 percent of overall votes cast in a given election would not be allowed to hold seats in Congress. Without sitting members, a party would be automatically shut out of public campaign funds, and free political airtime on radio and television. Had this item been in place for the last Congressional vote in 1998, the number of parties with sitting members in Brazil's lower house would have been reduced from 16 to just 5;

* Parties would no longer be allowed to go into majority elections within pre-established alliances. In proportional elections (Brazil's case at all levels), overall votes cast for an alliance of parties are considered, and the winners are the candidates within the alliance who individually receive the most votes. This has been a way for smaller party candidates to win seats—thanks to the overall vote tally within the alliance, made possible by a bigger alliance partner;

* Parties would only be allowed to form pre-election alliances if these were national in scope, valid in every region and municipality. In other words, parties could no longer hook up with different partners in different areas, often with wildly varying political persuasions, as they do now—another blow to smaller political groups;

* Candidates would no longer be allowed to run in an election if they changed parties less than 36 months prior to the vote. This will greatly diminish the party-hopping that has been so common over the years—and so heavily criticized. Less than a month after 1998's newly-elected Congress was sworn in, close to 50 members had already jumped to other parties;

These four measures are what PSDB, PFL and PMDB leaders were able to agree on—the idea was to push ahead only with what can be rushed through Congress at this time without significant opposition. That gives the entire package a good shot at being passed by September 30—in time to take effect for next year's municipal elections.

What was kept out of this early stage of the reform, however, speaks volumes about Brazil's political system. Perhaps the biggest no-no is the disproportionately high number of members of Congress from poorer northern and northeastern states. This is a remnant of the military regime that ruled Brazil for 21 years until 1985. In order to subdue its more feisty congressional opponents, mainly from richer and more populous southern states, the regime simply increased the number of members from states where election outcomes could be more easily influenced. Thus, the number of "friendly" votes in Congress was artificially increased. Today, a member of Congress from São Paulo state needs at least 60 thousand votes to get to Brasília, but it only takes a fraction of that to elect a member from some northern states.

Logic says this is a simple matter of once again reducing the number of congressional seats for those states whose representation was illegitimately raised. But this being politics, it just won't be that simple. States that benefited in the past now argue they ought to be better represented, to avoid dominance by the rich south. At best, they're willing to discuss an increase in seats for other states, but not a decrease in their allotment. Party leaders actually did well to put this one aside for the time being.

No District
Voting

Another key element is the absence of district voting. A candidate for Congress or a State Legislature can be voted statewide, as can a City Council candidate gather votes citywide. In practice, this has created a breed of politicians that answer to no one after the election, because they're not officially responsible for anything. Some will work a specific area to gather votes, and once elected respond to that constituency, but this is a totally informal arrangement. It is left entirely up to the elected official to decide, after the election, if he or she will care about a specific region or constituency at all.

Not surprisingly, it has taken several years to get the idea of district voting to even be discussed in Brazil. Most politicians want no part of it, because it spells the end of the near-total freedom they enjoy now. Districts would force them to respond to a specific constituency, and would probably make getting elected a more difficult task. As things work now, a rich campaign fund usually does the trick—the more far-reaching the campaign, the more votes it will gather, and chances are the candidate will be elected. With electoral districts, a well-regarded local candidate would have a better chance, even against a well-funded opponent.

A third major element of political reform that will not be dealt with at this time is mandatory voting. In Brazil, there is no choice: every voter is expected to show up on Election Day, or justify the absence. Again, this makes life much easier for a candidate: no need to put much effort into getting out the vote, since high turnouts are almost a certainty.

This directly affects the quality of election campaigns. Without the need to convince voters to take part, the vast majority of politicians at all levels treat Brazilian voters with gratuitous, shallow, unfocused and generally empty campaigns, more often than not hinged on image rather than substance. Optional voting would be a powerful instrument in the improvement of the electoral process in Brazil, and for that reason, it is naturally shunned by most politicians.

All things considered, the real hot potatoes of political reform are not part of the package at this time. But at least the ball is now rolling, and this is a lot more than can be said for some other, equally vital constitutional reforms that have gone nowhere in Brazil's Congress, in some cases for years. This is only the opening phase of political reform, and it's definitely not everything that needs to happen. But it is an important first step. 

Adhemar Altieri is a veteran with major news outlets in Brazil, Canada and the United States. He holds a Master's Degree in Journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and spent ten years with CBS News reporting from Canada and Brazil. Altieri is a member of the Virtual Intelligence Community, formed by The Greenfield Consulting Group to identify future trends for Latin America. He is also the editor of InfoBrazil (http://www.infobrazil.com), an English-language weekly e-zine with analysis and opinions on Brazilian politics and economy. You can reach the author at editors@infobrazil.com

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