Since 2015, we have been facing a gradual reaction of the political system which have also shifted force relations between the Powers.
By Mônica Sodré, O Estado de S.Paulo
22 March 2022 | 03h00
Post-1990s political scientists have studied a Brazil that no longer seems to exist. We grew up with the thesis that the 1988 Constitution brought in its provisions a decision-making preponderance of the Executive branch based on its power of an institutional agenda. In other words, the relation between Executive and Legislative branches benefited the former on purpose and the Constitution guaranteed to the President of the Republic tools and the capacity of prevailing his interests. Among the mechanism for this was the possibility to issue provisional measures, to request urgency at any time during the course of a bill and to veto bills after parliamentary consideration, besides the prerogative to initiate and control the project process.
These are preterit tenses. Reality has shown that we have been, since 2015, facing a gradual reaction of the political system which has also shifted force relations between the Powers.
When the Car-Wash Operation was unleashed, in 2014, companies donated, altogether, more than BRL3 billion to electoral campaigns, representing 80% of donations that year. There is no doubt that the operation helped consolidate the public opinion perception that companies interfered and unbalanced the electoral game, and that its resources were, if not the origin, a major part in the explanation of corruption and embezzlement in politics. At that moment, the only public resource to finance public parties came from the Partisan Fund with a total of BRL25 million per year.
In September 2015, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) approved the donation by companies to electoral campaigns, after five years of analysis on the subject. Turning off the companies tap implied, of course, the opening of public resources taps at the disposal of the parties. That year, funds of the Partisan Fund were tripled (reaching BRL868 million) and, from there on, it has grown approximately 150%. Additionally, a new exclusive fund was created to finance electoral campaigns, which started in 2017 with the amount of BRL1.7 billion and recently had its sum tripled to BRL5.7 billion.
In addition to public resources that made parties and candidates abundant, the Parliament broadened its actions into the Federal Budget and gained more access to public resources. It was also in 2015 that the individual amendments became mandatory, that is to say, their execution is compulsory, which caused an impact in the Budget in nearly BRL10 billion that year. The initiative paved the way for bench amendments, that followed the same path in 2019, year in which the so-called special transfers were equally approved. This a modality in which Congressmen transfer resources to a local administration or a municipality without specific destination and the recipient entity will not necessarily have to submit a work plan or project.
In the meantime, a change would also occur in relation to presidential vetoes. As Bruno Carazza has it, the monthly average of vetoes in the current moment is twice as high as in the Lula administration, and the monthly overthrow of presidential vetoes in Congress is about four times higher today than its lowest rate in the past, during the second Dilma administration. We are dealing with an Executive facing difficulties to coordinate a reactionary Parliament as well as an Executive that uses vetoes as a publicly tool for its electoral base.
There are other two variables, which are connected to the electoral system, that also change the logic of politics as we know it. These are the end of coalitions in proportional elections and the progressive performance clause, which has the effect of reducing the number of parties represented in Parliament and with access to public resources. There is more money available – from public funds and the federal Budget – and soon enough we will have less parties at the table. Clearly, the dispute between them will become not only more heated, but it will also increase the power in the hands of party leaders and leaderships.
In over five years, and curiously in the midst of distrust that has tagged politicians, we have witnessed the reversal of campaign financing, the broadening of influence of the federal Legislature over public resources, and a different pattern of interaction between the Powers.
We have fallen under the illusion that private financing was the origin and the cause of political embezzlement, which led to a series of formal and informal changes that made the Parliament a stronger actor as well as access to public resources that are not necessarily transparent. It is possible to foresee that governance how we aimed at, with the decrease in the number of parties, will find it difficult to be materialized, if the Executive does not recover some of its prerogatives or shows the capacity to coordinate the coalition. As we can see, in politics there is no power vacuum.