Small politics grabs the wheel and accelerates in Congress – 06/15/2023 – Bruno Boghossian

That blocked Congress, which plays a hard game from voting to voting, knows how to step on the accelerator from time to time. The Chamber approved in one hour and 58 minutes the project that punishes what it calls “discrimination” against politicians. The rush was such that some deputies pressed the green button before reading the final report.

The Chamber’s speedometer is a good thermometer of self-preservation impulses and the search for benefits in the political world. When less than noble interests of the class are at stake, parliamentarians tend to close deals with rivals, shorten discussions and do everything possible not to draw too much attention.

In May, the Constitution and Justice Commission needed one hour and 52 minutes to approve an amnesty for parties that committed electoral irregularities. At the end of last year, deputies took 42 minutes to approve the project that makes the entry of politicians in state-owned companies more flexible and one hour and 32 minutes to increase the salaries of the top of the three Powers.

Flash votes to approve self-serving measures are a decades-old tradition, but petty politics is taking ever deeper roots in Congress. Gaining advantages is the main institutional reason for a good part of a Legislature that, in the aggregate, does not mind maintaining loose ties of adherence or opposition to different agendas.

The primacy of the center is the cause and consequence of this game. Parliamentarians desperate for survival and thirsty for benefits formed a consortium to extract protection and perks from their power relations. Thus, they accumulate strength to preserve their mandates and say, clearly, that they can vote for or against the same platform depending on the positions and amendments they receive.

It is no coincidence that the newest symbol of this process is the project against “discrimination” against politicians. The text was proposed by the daughter of Eduardo Cunha, the man who founded the centrão in 2014, and reported by an ally of Arthur Lira, who perfected the group’s methods.

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