Political reform in Brazil

[buritobr]

In the last month, the Chamber of Representatives approved some Constitutional Amendments concerning the electoral system. They will become valid if the Senate approve them. The most important modifications were:

1) The term lenght of the president, federal representative, state governor, state represetative, mayor and city legislator ("vereador") was increased from 4 to 5 years. Senators used to have 8 year term. We don't know yet if they will have a 10 year term. This modification will take place after 2018. Since 1994, national and state elections (president, federal representative, senator, governor, state representative) used to take place in World Cup years and municipal elections (mayor, vereador) used to take place in Olympics years. The last national and state elections took place in 2014. Dilma's term will still have 4 years. The president elected in 2018 will still have a 4 year term. Then, the following national and state elections will take place in 2022, 2027, 2032, 2037 etc. The mayors and "vereadores" elected in 2016 will still have a 4 year term. Then, there will be municipal elections in 2020, 2025, 2030 etc.

2) Reelection was banned. That's why the Chamber decided to increase the term lenght.

The Constitution of 1988 established 5 year term and no reelection. Then, a Constitutional Amendment in 1993 reduced the term lenght to 4 years. Another Constitutional Amendment in 1997 allowed reelection. Then, most of the politicians found out that these modifications did not improve the quality of the political representation in Brazil. So, these modifications were reversed in 2015.

3) Minimum age requirement for federal and state representatives reduced from 21 to 18 years. Minimum age requirement for senator reduced from 35 to 29 years.

4) No more public funding for parties that do not have representatives in the Chamber

5) The most polemic issue: the Chamber allowed donation for electoral campaign made by private firms. It was a typical left-right issue. All the right was pro, all the left was against, but the right has majority in the Congress. All electoral campaigns have private donation. Since the Constitution neither allows nor forbids, the Supreme Court was judging if donations were legal or not. Before the judegement, donations were allowed. If the Supreme Court decide that they are not legal, of course they will become ilegal. But after the approval of a Constitutional Amendment considering that private donations are legal, of course the Supreme Court will have to accept that donations are legal. Since most of the representatives received a lot of Money from private firms during the campaign (otherwise they would have not been elected), of course they are interested that private donations should be legal.