Allies of Lula and Bolsonaro articulate amnesty for parties – 03/31/2023 – Politics

On the 22nd, the Chamber of Deputies received a PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) that establishes the greatest amnesty in history for electoral irregularities committed by political parties, which in 2022 alone received R$ 6 billion from public coffers.

Signed by 184 deputies, including the leaders of the government, José Guimarães (PT-CE), and of the opposition, Carlos Jordy (PL-RJ), the text prohibits any punishment for illegalities committed until the enactment of the PEC (including disrespect for the transfer minimum amount of funds to women and blacks in elections), in addition to allowing the return of corporate financing to settle debts prior to 2015.

PEC 9/2023 is signed by 13 parties and federations, the main ones being the PL of former president Jair Bolsonaro (40 deputies sign), the federation led by the PT of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (33), in addition to PSD (33), MDB (29), PP (17), Republicans (15) and Podemos (8).

The first article of the PEC extends to the October 2022 dispute the amnesty to parties that have not met the minimum quota for transferring public resources to women and blacks.

If approved, the proposal consolidates total impunity for widespread non-compliance with these quotas, which came into effect slowly over time with the aim of encouraging the participation of women and blacks in politics.

In April 2022, Congress had already approved and enacted a PEC granting amnesty to parties for non-compliance with quotas in previous elections.

Motivated by impunity or not, the fact is that parties have repeatedly failed to comply with these quotas. Such as Sheet showed, the summits of the Three Powers had only four women after the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and remain male and white until today.

The second article of the PEC establishes that “sanctions of any nature, including the return and collection of amounts, fine or suspension of the Party Fund and the Special Fund for Campaign Financing, will not apply to the rendering of accounts for the financial and electoral period of the political parties prior to the enactment of this amendment to the Constitutional Amendment”.

In other words, once the PEC is approved, the analysis by the Electoral Justice of the parties’ accounts regarding the application of public money in their day-to-day activities and in elections would be practically innocuous.

There is a long history of public money being misused by the subtitles and used for luxury expenses, such as the purchase of helicopters, real estate, cars worth more than R$ 100,000, in addition to huge expenses in restaurants.

The third article allows parties to receive business money again “to settle debts with suppliers contracted or assumed until August 2015”, when the STF (Federal Supreme Court) prohibited the financing of companies to parties and candidates.

In the mini-electoral reforms approved by Congress in the year before each election, it has been common to loosen rules and oversight, which at certain times includes pardoning those who break the law —but so far nothing has been approved with the magnitude that the current proposal of amnesty provides.

A Sheet sought this Thursday (30), directly or through their advisors, José Guimarães and Carlos Jordy, the leaders of the Republicans, Hugo Mota (PB), and PSD, Antonio Brito (BA), in addition to the presidents of the MDB, Baleia Rossi (SP), and from Podemos, Renata Abreu (SP), who also signed the PEC.

The president of the Constitution and Justice Commission, Rui Falcão (PT-SP), where the PEC starts processing, and the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), responsible for guiding it in plenary if it be approved by the CCJ and a special commission.

There were no responses.

The report also sought out other party leaders to gather their opinion on the text. Only Zeca Dirceu (PR), leader of the PT bench, said through the press office that he supports the measure.

Member of Parliament who heads the PEC, Paulo Magalhães (PSD-BA) signs the justification for the proposition.

In the text, he makes no mention of the general amnesty of party accountability and says that forgiveness for non-compliance with quotas also in 2022 aims to “preserve the stability of the elections and guarantee legal certainty” as a result, among other points, of an alleged doubt about the scope of the rule (whether national or regional).

To be approved, a PEC needs the support of at least 60% of parliamentarians (308 out of 513 in the Chamber and 49 out of 81 in the Senate), in two rounds of voting in each House. If this occurs, it is enacted and becomes effective, with no possibility of vetoing the Executive Branch.

“Brazilian parties are fundamentally funded with public money. These values ​​have grown exponentially in recent years, which would require the strengthening of the Electoral Justice and the improvement of its auditing procedures, which even today are capable of identifying numerous irregularities, in which the parties often reoffend, and every year lead to the return of millions of reais to public coffers”, says Marcelo Issa, executive director of Partidary Transparency.

He points out several measures that were taken by the Legislature in the sense of making the rules for financing and application of these resources more flexible, restricting the prerogatives of the Electoral Justice and making it difficult to identify irregularities.

“This PEC and the project for the new Electoral Code, approved by the Chamber in 2021, are the main examples of this process, which causes even more concern in the current global context of democracy crisis, with attacks directed especially at the Judiciary, as recently occurred in the Brazil and continues to occur in countries like Israel and Mexico.”

Last year, parties and candidates received from public coffers R$5 billion from the Electoral Fund and R$1 billion from the Party Fund.

“Seeing a proposal like this is very revolting for us, who are fighting for more women in politics”, says Laiz Soares, co-founder of Conecta, an accelerator for women in politics.

“I understand the side of the parties, I understand that it is sometimes difficult to operationalize the candidacies, there are several implementation challenges, but I think that nothing justifies this amnesty, I think it is not the way to go. I am afraid that this will set a precedent and in the next elections continue to happen. This amnesty has to be stopped.”

Since the presentation, on the 22nd, 10 female deputies and one deputy have submitted requests to withdraw their signatures from the proposal, but the Chamber’s internal regulations do not allow withdrawals or additions of signatures after the start of the PEC process —which needs at least 171 supporters to be presented.

The only possibility of archiving the measure, now, is if the absolute majority of the subscribers request the withdrawal of the proposal.