Amnesty PEC is endorsed by a majority of white men – 05/16/2023 – Power

The Amnesty PEC, which forgives parties that did not comply with gender and racial quotas in elections, advanced in the Chamber this Tuesday (16) with the votes of a majority formed by white men.

In all, there were 45 votes in favor of pardoning the parties in the CCJ (Commission for Constitution and Justice), 38 male and 7 female.

With regard to race, 41 white and 4 black people, all self-declared brown, supported the proposal. Of the 55 voters this Tuesday, 46 are men and only 9 are women. Of this group, 49 declared themselves white, only 5 said they were brown and one, deputy Kim Kataguiri (União Brasil-SP), yellow.

The vote mirrors the configuration of parties and other sectors of politics, also formed by a majority of white men. In the Chamber, there are 422 deputies and 91 female deputies, of which 311 are white and 106 are black. In the Senate, there are 70 men and 11 women.

PEC 09/2023 is seen as a setback by movements for exempting from sanctions of any nature parties that have not allocated at least 30% of the electoral fund budget to candidates, in addition to an amount proportional to the number of black candidates they launch, as provided for by law, measures established by law to increase gender and race diversity the policy.

Among 9 women who voted, 7 were in favor of the PEC and only 2 against it. One of the defenders of the measure is deputy Gleisi Hoffmann (PR), president of the PT.

Even though he is historically in favor of gender and racial quotas for parties, Gleisi defended the PT from criticism for supporting the PEC and said he will present amendments to the project aimed at women and blacks in the special commission and in plenary.

From the perspective of race, of the 5 people who declared themselves brown, 4 voted in favor of the PEC and only one, Mendonça Filho (União-PE), voted against it. No self-declared black person participated in the vote.

Those most affected by electoral irregularities committed by the parties, women and blacks, say that the project undermines efforts made in recent years to include underrepresented groups and reinforces impunity.

Also during the voting session this Tuesday, shortly after the national president of the PT spoke at the CCJ in favor of the PEC, the party’s website published a note of repudiation of the proposal, prepared by the National Forum of Instances of Women of Political Parties.

“Once again, the patriarchal system comes together to consolidate fraud against gender quotas. This is the purpose of PEC nº 09/2023: to consolidate, election after election, non-compliance with legislation and jurisprudence that guarantee political rights to women” , says an excerpt. Minutes later the demonstration was erased.

From the party point of view, Lula’s PT and Jair Bolsonaro’s PL promoted a rare moment of union and voted closed in favor of the proposal, without any dissent.

Republicans, PSD and PP also massively supported the proposal. Only Gerlen Diniz (PP-AC) disagreed and voted against.

The main opponents of the measure were PSOL and Novo, in another unusual alliance.

The text of the Proposed Amendment to the Constitution was signed by 184 parliamentarians, 141 white, 41 black (32 brown and 9 black) and 2 indigenous. However, 16 requests for withdrawal of signatures were filed, 14 of them by women, 5 by black deputies and 2 by indigenous people.

The CCJ is the first step in the process and, in theory, only analyzes the constitutionality and legality of the measures. Now, a special commission will be installed, the last step before the plenary vote, when the vote of at least 308 of the 513 parliamentarians will be required.