Political reform of 2017 reduces swelling of parties – 02/25/2023 – Politics

The bloated Brazilian party system has been undergoing a downsizing that should lead the country to have, in the coming weeks, for the first time in a decade, less than 30 parties in operation.

This process originates from political mini-reforms approved by Congress in 2015 and 2017 and should result in greater party rationality in the coming years, with the extinction of various acronyms for rent or without representation in society.

In 2015 the country reached the record number of 35 registered political parties. Since then, changes to the law passed by Congress have forced mergers and incorporations and reduced that number to 31. The Electoral Justice analyzes two more requests, which should reduce the number to 29.

There are two milestones in this process.

The first, in 2015, came to inhibit the creation of parties. A mini-reform approved that year required that parties under formation obtain the minimum support of voters (around 500,000 signatures) within two years (before there was no deadline), and none of them could be affiliated with an existing party (before, they could) .

These new rules were crucial to block, for example, the attempt to create the Alliance for Brazil, a party that Jair Bolsonaro (now in the PL) and supporters tried to put on its feet between 2019 and 2022, but which ended up in failure.

Since then, only one party has emerged from scratch, the small Popular Unit (UP), in 2019.

The second milestone was to reduce the current number of parties and occurred in October 2017, with the enactment of constitutional amendment 97.

The measure approved by Congress ended the possibility of a coalition between the parties for the election of deputies and councilors from 2020, and, most importantly, established a performance clause (or barrier clause) that takes away public resources and access to advertising. electoral and party of those subtitles that do not reach a minimum performance in the polls.

The clause came into force in 2018 and has its rules tightened from election to election, until 2030, when parties will have to obtain at least 3% of valid national votes for federal deputy, uniformly distributed in at least nine states, or elect at least at least 15 federal deputies, also distributed in at least one third of the states of the federation.

In 2018, when the floor was 1.5%, 14 parties did not reach the clause. In 2022, when the floor rose to 2%, there were 15.

This has forced small and dwarf subtitles to be incorporated or merged with others, a movement that should intensify in the coming years.

Failure to comply with the clause does not force the dissolution of the parties. Without reaching it, however, they do not receive the party fund, which will distribute R$ 1.2 billion this year, nor do they have access to party and electoral propaganda on TV and radio, among other implications —possible deputies and councilors elected by these acronyms can migrate to others without risk of loss of mandate.

Since 2018, the PPL, PRP, PHS, PSL, DEM and PROS have already disappeared from the party alphabet soup. The PSC must be incorporated into Podemos. Patriota and PTB should merge and create Mais Brasil.

The movement was also reflected in the number of parties represented in Congress.

In the legislature that began in 2018, there were 30 parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies. That number dropped to 23 in 2023 and, with the new mergers and acquisitions, it should stay at 20.

Despite advances towards greater party rationality in the country, there have been attempts since 2017 to loosen the rules, one of which was approved.

In 2021, for example, the Chamber approved the resumption of coalitions between the subtitles – which increases the chance of election of deputies and councilors of smaller acronyms. The Senate, however, blocked the proposal and it did not go ahead.

That same year, Congress approved the creation of federations, which allowed the union of two or more parties for common action in parliaments.

This saved the PV and PC do B, which formed a federation with the PT, Rede, which joined the PSOL, and Cidadania, which federated with the PSDB, from being decapitated.

The PP of the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (AL), is negotiating to form a federation with União Brasil (result of the merger between PSL and DEM), to increase its firepower in Congress and in the relationship with the government.

If the federations are also counted, the parties and party groups that will act in the Chamber will fall from 20 to 16.

“The progressive effects of the clause are positive both from the point of view of the quality of democracy, because they make the political system more functional, and in relation to the legitimacy of public spending, which starts to focus on more representative associations”, says Marcelo Issa , executive director of Party Transparency.

“However, the constant increases in public funds directed to the party system, increasingly controlled by a smaller number of parties, would demand a permanent increase in mechanisms for transparency and inspection of the use of these resources.”

Author of the book “Political Parties in Brazil, the Dilemmas between the Barrier Clause and Hyperpartisanship” (Juruá publishing house), Josafá da Silva Coelho says that the clause is fundamental for Brazilian democracy “to the extent that it may represent a possible conciliation between multi-party system and the excessive proliferation of political parties, without, however, attacking the foundations of the Republic or going against the constitutional principles”.

Furthermore, adds Coelho —who holds a doctorate and master’s degree in Social Policies and Citizenship from the Catholic University of Salvador and a member of Abradep (Brazilian Academy of Electoral and Political Law)—, “it has already been demonstrated that it is not the number of parties that makes a democracy more qualified than another”.

See some of the main changes in political rules since the 1988 Constitution

• 1998 – Gender quota: The gender quota begins to apply, which required parties to include at least 25% of women in proportional disputes, initiating a cycle of approving affirmative actions in an attempt to expand female participation in politics.

• 2008 – Party loyalty: the Federal Supreme Court ratifies the Law of Party Fidelity, which punishes the change of party with the loss of mandate, save for exceptions.

• 2014 – Hidden donations: Superior Electoral Court approves resolution that hinders the practice of hidden donations, in which it was not possible to identify who financed the candidates.

• 2016 – Party loyalty: Congress loosens the rules and approves a 30-day window for the free exchange of politicians between subtitles, in the election year. The previous year, the STF had already decided that the loss of mandate due to party infidelity does not apply to majority positions (president, senators, governors and mayors).

• 2017 – Barrier clause and electoral fund: Congress approves rules to stifle small parties (performance clause and end of coalitions in proportional elections) and creates the electoral fund, today the largest source of funds for campaigns (distributed R$ 5 billion in public funds in 2022)

• 2018 – Gender quota: STF defines that parties are obliged to transfer campaign funds to women in proportion to the number of candidates —that is, at least 30%.

• 2020 – Race quota: STF defines which parties are obliged to distribute campaign funds proportionally to the number of white and black candidates they launch.

• 2021 – Gender and race quota: Congress approves amendment to the law determining that votes given to women and blacks in the 2022 to 2030 elections will count double for the purpose of distributing party and electoral fund resources.