The carnival of politics and the biggest block in the world – 02/19/2023 – Marcus Melo

The biggest Carnival block in the world is Galo da Madrugada. But we also probably now have the largest parliamentary bloc on record. It brings together 20 of the 23 parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies (87% of the total): there are 496 parliamentarians or 97% of the members of the house.

The block brings together, among other parties, the PT and the PL. Also part of the block: PCdoB and PV (which make up the federation with the PT), União Brasil, PP, MDB, PSD, Republicanos, PSDB, Cidadania, Podemos, PSC, PDT, PSB, Avante, Solidariedade, Pros, Patriota and PTB . Only Novo (3 deputies) and the federation formed by Psol and Rede (14 deputies) do not participate in the bloc.

The aberrant situation in the Chamber is not repeated in the Senate, but the picture is equally bizarre: the largest bloc comprises 31 senators from three governing parties, two formally independent and one of the opposition. Government and opposition parties participate. Ideological or government-opposition cleavage is virtually non-existent. Bolsonarism’s hard core parties are divided into two blocks: the PL forms a separate block, and the Republicans and Progressives another.

And the ship goes. In a context in which polarization has intensified, reaching unprecedented levels, and the new president remains in permanent campaign.

There is no congruence in any relevant dimension between the Chief Executive —his cabinet that does not reflect the party composition of the parliamentary base— and the parliamentary blocs. This is not a new situation. In the Lula and Dilma governments there was no party congruence under any relevant metric (just remember that Marcelo Crivella and George Hilton were ministers). The incongruity only changed in magnitude.

In the past he was one of the causes of the political malaise that led to the 2013 demonstrations, and the illiberal rejection of the “old politics”. It is a permanent source of civic cynicism and anti-establishment criticism.

There are records in democracies where the main political forces govern together (eg Germany, Austria, Holland, Colombia, among others). Germany had four grand government coalitions (the Groko) between 1966 and 2017, in which the arch-rivals, SPD and CDU/CSU, came to control 90% of parliamentary seats, as in 1966-1969. But the similarities end there.

The reason for the formation of the groko was programmatic: in 1966 the liberal FDP left the government in opposition to the proposed tax reform. Such government coalitions are contractualized as I have shown here. In the 1960s and 1970s, Groko generated a huge reaction in civil society and was one of the targets of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, which called it a “bourgeoisie collusion”. In Brazil, the target would be the “collusion of the political class”.

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