Chamber accelerates projects on quotas for blacks and women – 09/06/2023 – Politics

The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), agreed with party leaders to try to vote in plenary, next week, three proposals that have as their central point the weakening of electoral legislation and quotas for blacks and women. .

They are the electoral mini-reform, which simplifies campaign accountability, among other points, the Amnesty PEC, which grants the greatest pardon in history to politicians and parties, in addition to reducing campaign funds for blacks, and the PEC of Women, which establishes a minimum reserve of seats in the legislature, but may reduce the current quota of candidacies.

The speed of voting is intended to facilitate Senate approval and the enactment or sanction of the rules by October 5, the deadline for them to be valid in the 2024 municipal elections.

This Wednesday (6) the group that debates the mini-electoral reform met, but postponed to Monday (11) the presentation and voting on the final report, which can be submitted to the plenary of the Chamber as early as Wednesday (13) ).

Among other points, the mini-reform releases, in practice, candidates from submitting partial accounts even during the campaign, which will mean that this information will only be made public after the elections.

The proposal also weakens the institute of federations, prohibiting that punishments to one of the captions that compose it affect the federation as a whole, and prohibits blockages in transfers from the Electoral Fund, the main source of funds for campaigns, which in 2022 distributed R$ 5 billion to candidates.

Amnesty’s PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution), presented in the Chamber with the support of virtually all parties, establishes the greatest pardon in history for electoral irregularities committed by political parties, which in 2022 alone received R$ 6 billion from the coffers public.

As shown to Sheetthe report also intends to include in the Constitution the forecast that subtitles direct 20% of the campaign budget to black candidates, which will represent, in practice, a reduction of more than half of the public money that blacks and browns should receive (50%) .

Behind the scenes, parliamentarians are trying to promote the version that the 20% for blacks represents an advance, given that this will be a constitutional rule, unlike the absence of a law on the subject —the current obligation to allocate resources is based on decisions by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) and STF (Federal Supreme Court).

The Women’s PEC intends to establish a minimum quota of seats in the Legislative of 15%, a lower level than the female bench was able to elect to the Chamber of Deputies in 2022, 17.7%, a measure that can be accompanied by a 30% reduction to 15% of the quota of female candidates that parties are required by law to field.

These percentages would rise during the elections, but the text is not yet closed.

The women’s bench mobilized to try to avoid the reduction and ensure that the quota of 15% of seats does not nullify the 30% of funds – if that happens, the assessment is that it would be a breakthrough.

At the same time, deputies are already working to align the points of the proposals with the Senate, to speed up the procedure. Last Tuesday (5), for example, Elmar Nascimento (União Brasil-BA), one of Lira’s main allies, met with Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) to discuss the issues.

The gender quota was created by Congress itself over the decades.

It currently consists of reserving at least 30% of candidacies for women, in addition to the requirement that billionaire campaign funds be transferred proportionally to them – that is, if a party launched 33% of women, it must allocate 33% to them. of the funds.

The racial quota was adopted by decisions of the TSE and the STF and does not establish the number of candidacies, but a requirement that the party allocate campaign funds proportional to the number of brown and black candidates it launches.

The two quotas, gender and race, have the formal objective of encouraging the participation of women and blacks in politics. Despite being a majority of the population, they are a minority in the Executive and Legislative branches.

Both quotas are heavily criticized by party leaderships on the grounds that it is difficult to bring together women interested in joining politics, in addition to the fact that there is strong internal pressure to maintain the privilege of distributing funds to white candidates.

Hence the Amnesty PEC, which will free the captions from punishment for not having obeyed the quotas in the 2022 elections. and the blacks.