The Senate floor during ordinary deliberative session - 08/25/2015 (Moreira Mariz / Ag Senate.)
The political reform bill that the Senate is expected to vote this week reinforces the power of big parties and hinders the parliamentary election by subtitles called "nanicas". If approved, the proposal should reduce fragmentation of Congress already in upcoming elections.
There are three items in the project that especially benefit the parties with large benches, as PT, PMDB and PSDB. The main thing is the article that makes innocuous coalitions in the elections for deputy. The text also restricts the midgets access to debates and reduces their "value" in the majority coalition - for mayor, governor and president - to reduce their shares in TV time of the election schedule.
As compensation, the proposal offers the parties threatened shrinking the possibility to unite in a federation, a body formed by two or more subtitles, but that would function as a single.
Coalitions in the elections for the House are important for the "midgets" because they do not always get, alone, the electoral quotient - minimum number of votes to elect a deputy. Alliances with larger subtitles eliminate this obstacle, since those who need to reach the minimum number of votes is the coalition, ie the sum of the electoral result of all its members.
The Senate bill, however, provides that vacancies for the House are divided based on the performance of each party, regardless of whether he do or not part of the coalition. This change should bring significant changes in the policy framework. If the election of 2014 had been held without coalitions, the number of parties represented in the House would have been 22 rather than 28. PMDB, PT and PSDB, who elected just over one third of them would have occupied more than half of vacancies.
Restricting the coalition was not in the political reform bill already approved by Members - proposal by the rapporteur was inserted in the Senate, Romero Juca (PMDB-RR). If approved by the Senate, will only come into force if indeed go through a second vote in the House.
The Congress runs out of time for the reform to be valid already in the 2016 municipal elections For this to occur, the processing of the new rules must be completed a year before the election.
The bill the Senate is expected to vote this week is the PLC 75/2015, amending the Law on Political Parties, the Electoral Law and the Electoral Code. No date for the Senate vote the proposed constitutional amendment that concentrates other important points, as the end of reelection and maintenance of private financing of campaigns.
President of the Political Reform Committee, Senator Jorge Viana (PT-AC) regrets that it has not been a change in the form of funding. "I had to give up [the end of private financing]. Even with the Lava Operation Jet, we are throwing away an opportunity to change that," he said. Despite the frustration, Viana points victories in the proposal: the likely order of proportional coalitions and some measures to reduce the cost of campaigns.
"Unfortunately, this reform is timid," said Senator Cristovam Buarque (PDT-DF). "It did not end the finance companies to campaigns." According to him, the planned changes are "cosmetic". "The end of reelection should be the only substantial change."
President of DEM, Senator José Agripino (RN) provides that the senators and the House must converge to end re-election. "This is a consensus, but there are still doubts about the term of office of four or five years. It was the possible reform within an unstable framework. There was no winner."
(With Estadão Content)