Politics of Brazil Política do Brasil | |
|---|---|
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| Polity type | Federalpresidentialconstitutionalrepublic |
| Constitution | Constitution of Brazil |
| Legislative branch | |
| Name | National Congress |
| Type | Bicameral |
| Meeting place | National Congress Palace |
| Upper house | |
| Name | Federal Senate |
| Presiding officer | Davi Alcolumbre,President of the Federal Senate |
| Lower house | |
| Name | Chamber of Deputies |
| Presiding officer | Hugo Motta,President of the Chamber of Deputies |
| Executive branch | |
| Head of state andgovernment | |
| Title | President |
| Currently | Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva |
| Appointer | Direct popular vote |
| Cabinet | |
| Name | Cabinet of Brazil |
| Current cabinet | Second cabinet of Lula da Silva |
| Leader | President |
| Deputy leader | Vice President |
| Appointer | President |
| Headquarters | Palácio do Planalto |
| Ministries | 37 |
| Judicial branch | |
| Name | Judiciary of Brazil |
| Courts | Federal courts of Brazil |
| Supreme Federal Court | |
| Chief judge | Edson Fachin |
| Superior Court of Justice | |
| Chief judge | Herman Benjamin |
| This article is part of a series on the |
| Politics of Brazil |
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Political ideologies |
Thepolitics of Brazil take place in a framework of afederalpresidentialrepresentative democraticrepublic, whereby thePresident is bothhead of state andhead of government, and of amulti-party system. The political and administrative organization ofBrazil comprises thefederal government, the 26states and afederal district, and themunicipalities.
The federal government exercises control over thecentral government and is divided into three independent branches: executive, legislative and judicial.Executive power is exercised by the President, advised by acabinet.Legislative power is vested upon theNational Congress, a two-chamber legislature comprising theFederal Senate and theChamber of Deputies.Judicial power is exercised by the judiciary, consisting of theSupreme Federal Court, theSuperior Court of Justice and otherSuperior Courts, theNational Justice Council and theRegional Federal Courts.
The states areautonomoussub-national entities with their own governments that, together with the other federal units, form the Federative Republic of Brazil. Currently, Brazil is divided politically and administratively into 27 federal units, being 26 states and one federal district. The executive power is exercised by agovernor elected to a four-year term. The judiciary is exercised by courts of first and second instance addressing the common justice. Each state has a unicamerallegislature with deputies who vote on state laws. The Constitution of Brazil also contains two elements ofdirect democracy, stated in Article 14.[1] The legislative assemblies supervise the activities of the Executive power of the states and municipalities.
Themunicipalities are minor federal units of the Federative Republic of Brazil. Each municipality has an autonomouslocal government, comprising amayor, directly elected by the people to a four-year term, and alegislative body, also directly elected by the people.
Brazil has an unrestricted multiparty system with a large number of political parties. Some parties lack ideological consistency and it is common for congressmen to switch parties, weakening electoral coalitions. At same time, the high number of political parties makes the Executive need to gather alliances of different political parties must piece together diverse and often ideologically incoherent coalitions to pass legislation (this is known ascoalition presidentialism).[2][3][4] TheEconomist Intelligence Unit'sDemocracy Index rated Brazil as a "flawed democracy" in 2022.[5] Brazil was 2023 the 13th most electoraldemocratic country in Latin America and the Caribbean according to theV-Dem Democracy indices.[6]
Brazil has had sevenconstitutions:
According to sociologist Marcelo Ridenti, Brazilian politics is divided between internationalistliberals andstatist nationalists.[7] The first group consists of politicians arguing that internationalization of theeconomy is essential for the development of the country, while the latter rely oninterventionism, and protection ofstate enterprises.[7] According to Ridenti, who cites theFernando Henrique Cardoso administration as an example of the first group and theLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration as an example of the second, "we have it cyclically".[7]
Lula'sWorkers' Party tended to the statist nationalist side, although there areprivatizing forces within his party and government, while Cardoso'sSocial Democratic Party tended to favor the international private market side by takingneoliberal policies as with the globalThird Way.[7] Lula compares himself withGetúlio Vargas,Juscelino Kubitschek andJoão Goulart, presidents seen as statist nationalists.[8]
As of May 2017, 16,668,589 Brazilians were affiliated with apolitical party.[9] The largest parties areMDB (which accounts for 14.4% of affiliated voters), thePT (9.5% of affiliated voters), andPSDB (8.7% of affiliated voters).[9]
In 2020, the scenario is that the country has more than 30 active political parties, and only one of them defines itself as a right-wing party (PL), with a clear political imbalance. The country has several far-left parties likePSOL,PCO,PSTU,PCB,UP,PCdoB, left parties likePT,PSB,PDT,PV,Rede andSolidariedade and center-left likePSDB,PMN andCidadania. Ten parties declare themselves as the center:MDB,PSD,Agir,DC,PROS,Avante,Patriota,Podemos andPMB. Five parties declare themselves as center-right:Brazil Union,PTB,Progressistas,PSC,PRTB andRepublicanos. The only party that claims to be purely liberal, without further consideration, isNovo. When asked about their ideological spectrum, Brazilian parties tend to give obtuse and non-conclusive answers on the subject.[10]
Brazil is afederalpresidential constitutional republic, based onrepresentative democracy. The federal government has three independentbranches: executive, legislative, and judicial.Executive power is exercised by the executive branch, headed by thePresident, advised by aCabinet. The President is both thehead of state and thehead of government.Legislative power is vested upon theNational Congress, a two-chamber legislature comprising theFederal Senate and theChamber of Deputies.Judicial power is exercised by the judiciary, consisting of theSupreme Federal Court, theSuperior Court of Justice and otherSuperior Courts, theNational Justice Council and theRegional Federal Courts.
The 26 Brazilianstates are semi-autonomous self-governing entities organized with complete administration branches, relative financial independence and their own set of symbols, similar to those owned by the country itself. Despite their relative autonomy they all have the same model of administration, as set by the Federal Constitution.
States hold elections every four years and exercise a considerable amount of power. The 1988 constitution allows states to keep their own taxes, set upState Houses, and mandates regular allocation of a share of the taxes collected locally by the federal government.
The Executive role is held by theGovernador (Governor) and his appointedSecretários (Secretaries); the Legislative role is held by theAssembléia Legislativa (Legislative Assembly); and the Judiciary role, by theTribunal de Justiça (Justice Tribunal). The governors and the members of the assemblies are elected, but the members of the Judiciary are appointed by the governor from a list provided by the current members of the State Law Court containing only judges (these are chosen by merit in exams open to anyone with a law degree). The name chosen by the governor must be approved by the Assembly before inauguration. The 1988 Constitution has granted the states the greatest amount of autonomy since the Old Republic.
Each of the 26 state governors must achieve more than 50% of the vote, including a second round run-off between the top two candidates if necessary. In contrast to the federal level, state legislatures are unicameral, although the deputies are elected through similar means, involving an open-list system in which the state serves as one constituency. State level elections occur at the same time as those for the presidency and Congress. In 2002, candidates from eight different parties won the gubernatorial contest while 28 parties are represented in the country's state legislatures. The last set of elections took place in 2006.
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Brazil has no clear distinction betweentowns andcities (in effect, the Portuguese wordcidade means both). The only possible difference is regarding the municipalities that have a court of first instance and those that do not. The former are calledSedes de Comarca (seats of acomarca, which is the territory under the rule of that court). Other than that, only size and importance differs one from another.
The municipality (município) is a territory comprising one urban area, thesede (seat), from which it takes the name, and several other minor urban or rural areas, thedistritos (districts). The seat of a municipality must be the most populous urban area within it; when another urban area grows too much it usually splits from the original municipality to form another one.
A municipality is relatively autonomous: it enacts its own "constitution", which is calledorganic law (Lei Orgânica), and it is allowed to collect taxes and fees, to maintain a municipal police force (albeit with very restricted powers), to pass laws on any matter that do not contradict either the state or the national constitutions, and to create symbols for itself (like a flag, an anthem and a coat-of-arms). However, not all municipalities exercise all of this autonomy. For instance, only a few municipalities keep local police forces, some of them do not collect some taxes (to attract investors or residents) and many of them do not have a flag (although they are all required to have a coat-of-arms).
Municipalities are governed by an electedprefeito (Mayor) and a unicameralCâmara de Vereadores (Councillors' Chamber). In municipalities with more than 200,000 voters, the Mayor must be elected by more than 50% of the valid vote. The executive power is calledPrefeitura.
Brazilian municipalities can vary widely in area and population. The municipality ofAltamira, in the State ofPará, with 161,445.9 square kilometres of area, is larger than many countries in the world. Several Brazilian municipalities have over 1,000,000 inhabitants, with São Paulo, at more than 9,000,000, being the most populous.
Until 1974 Brazil had one state-level municipality, theState of Guanabara, now merged withthe State of Rio de Janeiro, which comprisedthe city of Rio de Janeiro solely.
The Federal District is an anomalous unit of the federation, as it is not organized in the same manner as a municipality, does not possess the same autonomy as a state (though usually ranked among them), and is closely related to the central power.
It is considered a single and indivisible entity, constituted by the seat,Brasília and someof the satellite cities. Brasília and the satellite cities are governed by theRegional Administrators individually and as a whole are governed by the Governor of the Federal District.
Throughout its modern history, Brazil has struggled to build ademocratic and egalitarian society because of its origins as aplantation colony and the strong influence of slavery.
In 1822 thePrince Pedro de Alcântara, son of KingJohn VI of Portugal, proclaimed independence. He was the first Emperor (Pedro I) until his abdication in 1831 in favor of his elderson. Due to the son's age (five years) a regency was established and the country had its first elections, thoughvoting was restricted to a minority of the population.
In 1889, MarshalDeodoro da Fonseca declared the republic, by acoup d'état.
When the republic succeeded the empire,Auguste Comte's motto "Order and Progress" appeared on the flag of the Republic and the 1891 Constitution was inspired by Auguste Comte'sCourse of Positive Philosophy and System of Positive Politics. The Republic's beginnings were marked by "coronelism", an equivalent of the caudillism of the Spanish-speaking countries. The "old republic" (1889–1930) is also known as the "oligarchic republic".[11]
Until 1930, the Brazilian republic was formally a democracy, although the power was concentrated in the hands of powerful land owners.
In 1930, a bloodlesscoup ledGetúlio Vargas to power. For about 15 years, he controlled the country's politics, with a brief three-year constitutional interregnum from 1934 to 1937. A longer, heavier regime, theEstado Novo had loose ties with Europeanfascism and spanned the years 1938 to 1945.
Like most of Latin America, Brazil experienced times of political instability after the Second World War. When Vargas was ousted from the presidency in another bloodless coup d'état, in 1945, a new and modern constitution was passed and the country had its first experience with an effective and widespread democracy. But the mounting tension between populist politicians (like Vargas himself and, later,Jânio Quadros) and the right led to a crisis that ultimately brought up themilitary coup d'état in 1964, now known, through declassified documents, to have been supported by the AmericanCentral Intelligence Agency.[12]
In 1964 a military-led coup d'état deposed the democratically elected president of Brazil,João Goulart. Between 1964 and 1985, Brazil was governed by the military, with atwo-party system that comprised a pro-governmentNational Renewal Alliance Party (ARENA) and an oppositionBrazilian Democratic Movement (MDB). Thousands of politicians (including former presidentJuscelino Kubitschek) had their political rights suspended, and military-sanctioned indirect elections were held for most elected positions until political liberalization during the government ofJoão Figueiredo.
In 1985, the military were defeated in an election according to the scheme they had set up as a consequence of the loss of political support among the elites. The opposition candidate,Tancredo Neves, was elected president, but died of natural causes before he was able to take office. Fearing a political vacuum that might stifle the democratic effort, Neves' supporters urged vice-president,José Sarney to take the oath and govern the country. Tancredo Neves had said that his election and the demise of military régime would create a "New Republic" and Sarney's term of government is often referred to by this name.
Sarney's government was disastrous in almost every field. The ongoingrecession and the soaringexternal debt drained the country's assets while ravaginginflation (which later turned intohyperinflation) demonetized the currency and prevented any stability. In an attempt to revolutionize the economy and defeat inflation, Sarney carried on an ambitious "heterodox" economic plan (Cruzado) in 1986, which included price controls, default on the external debts and reduction of salaries. The plan seemed successful for some months, but it soon caused wholesale shortages of consumer goods (especially of easily exportable goods like meat, milk, automobiles, grains, sugar and alcohol) and the appearance of a black market in which such goods were sold for higher prices. Buoyed by the ensuing popularity from the apparent success of the plan, Sarney secured the largest electoral win in Brazilian history; the party he had just joined,Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), won in 26 out of 27 states and in more than 3,000 municipalities. Just after the elections, Sarney's "corrections" to the economy failed to control inflation and the public perception that he had used an artificial control of inflation to win the elections proved to be his undoing. His popularity never recovered and he was plagued by vehement criticism from most sectors of society until the end of his term. Despite popular rejection, Sarney managed to extend his term from four to five years, and exerted pressure on the Constitutional Assembly that was drafting the new constitution to abort the adoption ofParliamentarism.
In 1989 Fernando Collor de Mello was elected president for the term from 1990 to 1994. The elections were marked by unanimous condemnation ofJosé Sarney, with all candidates trying to keep distance from him.
Collor made some very bold statements, like saying that the Brazilian industry (of which the Brazilians used to be very proud) was mostly obsolete and polluting or that defaulting the debt was equal to not paying the rent. He also took quite revolutionary measures, like reducing the number of ministries to only 12 and namingZélia Cardoso de Mello Minister of Economy or removing existing barriers to importing of goods.
His inflation control plan was based on an attempt to control prices and a complicated currency conversion process that prevented people from cashing their bank accounts for 18 months.
All of this made him quite unpopular and denied him support in the parliament that he needed since his own party held few seats. At the beginning of his third year in office, he resigned as a result of in a huge corruption scandal. The charges against him would later be dropped, some on mere technicalities, some for actually being irrelevant or false.[13][14]
Collor desperately tried to resistimpeachment by rallying the support of the youth and of the lower classes, but his call for help was answered by massive popular demonstrations, led mostly by students, demanding his resignation.
In 1992, the vice-president, Itamar Franco, took office as president and managed to evade the most feared consequences of Collor's downfall. He had to face a country with hyper-inflation, high levels of misery and unemployment. Far-left organizations were trying to turn the anti-Collor campaign into a wider revolutionary fight to overthrow the regime. Itamar finally granted full powers to his Minister of Economy, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, so the minister could launch thePlano Real, a new economic plan that seemed to be just the same as the many unsuccessful plans launched by Sarney, Collor and their military predecessor. But the Real was a success because ofRubens Ricupero and essentially because ofCiro Gomes, according to Itamar Franco himself, and terminated inflation in a few months.
In 1994, Cardoso with Ricupero,Ciro Gomes and others launched theirPlano Real, a successful economic reform that managed to permanently rid the country of the excessive inflation that had plagued it for more than forty years. The plan consisted of replacing the discredited old currency (cruzeiro andcruzeiro real) and pegging its value temporarily to the United States dollar. Inflation – which had become a fact of Brazilian life – was cut dramatically, a change that the Brazilians took years to get used to. Because of the success of Plano Real, Cardoso was chosen by his party to run for president and, with the strong support of Franco, eventually won, beatingLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had emerged as the favorite only one year earlier.
Cardoso's term was marked by other major changes in Brazilian politics and economy. Public services and state-owned companies wereprivatized (some for values supposedly too cheap according to his adversaries), the strongreal made it easy to import goods, forcing Brazilian industry to modernize and compete (which had the side effect of causing many of them to be bought by foreign companies). During his first term, a constitutional amendment was passed to enable a sitting Executive chief to run for re-election, after which he again beat Lula in 1998.
In 2002, at his fourth attempt, Lula was elected president. In part his victory was derived from the significant unpopularity of Cardoso's second term, which failed to address economic inequality, and to an extent from a softening of his and the party's radical stance, including a vice-presidential candidate from theLiberal Party, acceptance of anInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement from the previous government administration, and a line of discourse friendly to the financial markets.
Despite some achievements in solving part of the country's biggest problems, his term was plagued by multiple corruption scandals that rocked his cabinet, forcing some members to resign their posts.
In 2006 Lula regained part of his popularity and ran for re-election. After almost winning on the first round, he won the run-off againstGeraldo Alckmin from theBrazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), by a margin of 20 million votes.
In 2010, Lula's handpicked successor,Dilma Rousseff, was elected to the Presidency.
In 2011, Rousseff became the first woman to be elected president of Brazil.
In 2015 and 2016, many demonstrations were held against Rousseff demanding for her to be impeached because of corruption scandals.[17] According to studies by theBrazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics (Ibope), 70-80% of demonstrators questioned supported harsher sentences for criminal offences, and a reduction of the age of criminal responsibility to 16. Between 2010 and 2016, support for the death penalty increased from 31% to 49%, and the number of people declaring themselves conservative from 49% to 59%.
The decline in poverty and the development of the middle class during the Lula years also allowed right-wing parties to address broader segments of the electorate on economic issues. "The new lower middle class dream of being entrepreneurs and consumers" according to the Perseu Abramo Foundation. "They are very sensitive to the meritocracy rhetoric of the right and the evangelical churches, and less affected by the PT message, which is still aimed at the poor".[18]
The second presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva started on 1 January 2023, when he was inaugurated as the 39thPresident of Brazil.[19][20] he was elected for a third term asPresident of Brazil on 30 October 2022, by obtaining 50.9% of the valid votes in the2022 Brazilian general election.[21]
This was a set of investigations carried out by theFederal Police of Brazil, aimed at investigating a money laundering scheme that involved billions of reals in bribes. It resulted in more than a thousand search and seizure warrants, temporary arrests, preventive detentions and bench warrants. The operation started on March 17, 2014, and had 71 operational phases authorized, among others, by the then judge Sérgio Moro, during which more than one hundred people were arrested and convicted. It investigated crimes of active and passive corruption, fraudulent management, money laundering, criminal organization, obstruction of justice, fraudulent exchange operation and receipt of undue advantage. According to investigations and awarded claims, administrative members of the state-owned oil company Petrobras, politicians from the largest parties in Brazil, including presidents of the Republic, presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and state governors, as well as businessmen from large Brazilian companies, were involved. The Federal Police considers it the largest corruption investigation in the country's history.
Brazil is one of the most dangerous countries for militant farmworkers, with sixty-five murders of farmworkers engaged in conflicts over the right to land in 2017 alone. Between 1985 and 2017, 1,722 activists of theLandless Workers' Movement were murdered.[22]
In 2016, at least 49 people were murdered in Brazil defending the environment against companies or landowners.[23]
