Rapporteur wants military personnel out of 2024 elections – 11/03/2023 – Power

In a meeting with Minister José Múcio (Defense), Senator Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO) said that he is considering banning active military personnel from commanding ministries from 2025 and barring them from running in the 2024 election.

Kajuru is the rapporteur of the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) that prevents active military personnel from holding political positions. The expectation is that the text will be voted on in the Senate by the end of this month and then go to the Chamber.

However, the proposals being evaluated by the rapporteur will still be debated with more members of the government. Members of Palácio do Planalto and political articulation resist changes to the PEC.

Therefore, Kajuru wants to meet with Minister Alexandre Padilha (Institutional Relations) at the beginning of next week. The senator says he does not intend to take a confrontational position and present a report that displeases the government.

Lula’s (PT) ministers took five months to complete the design of the PEC, which was presented by the government leader in the Senate, Jaques Wagner (PT-BA).

Initially, the government would propose rules to prohibit active military personnel from the Armed Forces from contesting elections or occupying positions at the top level of the Executive – in this second item the objective was to avoid cases such as that of the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), which placed active military personnel in strategic functions of the Executive.

This preliminary version was created in an agreement on the topic with commanders Tomás Paiva (Army), Marcos Olsen (Navy) and Marcelo Damasceno (Air Force).

But the political wing of the government defended that the PEC be sent to Congress in a dehydrated form. The proposal then remained without the ban on active military personnel serving as State ministers.

The rapporteur, however, wants to seek conciliation with the government and propose that this measure be valid from 2025. Furthermore, he assesses that active military personnel are also prevented from occupying positions as executive secretary of the portfolios.

If a soldier accepted the invitation to be a minister or executive secretary, he would have to go into reserve.

Kajuru stated that he does not intend to extend the measure to bar active military personnel from senior positions in state governments. “This was not studied by the government [federal]. So I have no intention of doing it,” she said.

However, the most controversial idea being studied by the rapporteur should be bringing forward the effect of the PEC for the 2024 elections.

Experts believe that this could be legally challenged because the Constitution also provides that electoral rules need to be modified at least one year before the election. Therefore, this deadline has already expired for next year’s municipal elections.

“I will ask the technical advisor for an analysis so that there are no doubts and to prevent this from being questioned”, explained the senator.

Wagner, when presenting the PEC, included a provision that makes it clear that the ban on active military personnel running for political positions would not be valid for 2024.

For lawyer specializing in electoral law Helio Silveira, military personnel who want to be candidates next year can question the measure planned by the rapporteur.

“The spirit of article 16 of the Federal Constitution was to prevent sudden changes in the electoral system one year before the process began, to avoid those changes on a case-by-case basis that could cause harm. As it is a PEC, [a proposta envolvendo militares] it would be debated whether it would be affected by the determination of article 16 or not”, explained Silveira.

The meeting with Padilha should also be attended by Wagner and the leader of the PSD in the Senate, Otto Alencar (BA). The PSD has the largest bench in the House, and Otto was one of the organizers for the government to dehydrate the PEC – removing the part that contained the prohibition for active military personnel to assume ministerial positions.

Wagner studied at the Colégio Militar do Rio during his childhood and adolescence and considered going to Aman (Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras) to become an Army officer, had it not been for the beginning of the military dictatorship in 1964.

His history with the military helped him while he was in the Government of Bahia, with requests for the Armed Forces to act in GLO (Law and Order Guarantee) operations. The predicates also led him to the Ministry of Defense in the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government, in 2015.

Even though he is removed from positions that require constant relationships with the Armed Forces, the senator still maintains contact with general officers and assists them in elections in the National Congress.

Even if the PEC advances quickly this month in the Senate, there is still no deadline for the Chamber to approve the proposal. As it is an amendment to the Constitution, the processing is slower. Furthermore, in election years, Congress tends to shy away from controversial topics.