V Winner Post #3- Politics of Brazil

Disclaimer: As is the case in many of our Brazil posts- much of the content is Brazilian-based research. As such, ignore grammatical imperfections.

Politics of Brazil takes place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Brazil is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the National Congress. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Brazil is divided in 26 states and a federal district. Throughout its history, Brazil has struggled to build a democratic and egalitarian society, despite its origins as a plantation colony and the strong influence of slavery.

In 2002, on his fourth try, Lula was elected president. In part his victory was derived from the considerable unpopularity of Cardoso's second term, which failed to decrease the economic inequality, and in part from a softening of his and the party's radical stance, including a vice-presidential candidate from the Liberal Party, acceptance of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) accord agreed to by the previous government and a line of discourse friendly to the markets.

Despite some achievements on 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 against Geraldo Alckmin from Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), by a 20 million vote’s margin. Brazil is divided into two types of sub national units: states and municipalities.

Brazilian states 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 nation itself. Despite their relative autonomy they all have the same model of administration, as set by the Constitution. The states are:

§ Acre
§ Alagoas
§ Amapá
§ Amazonas
§ Bahia
§ Ceará
§ Distrito Federal
§ Espírito Santo
§ Goiás
§ Maranhão
§ Mato Grosso
§ Mato Grosso do Sul
§ Minas Gerais
§ Pará
§ Paraíba
§ Paraná
§ Pernambuco
§ Piauí
§ Rio de Janeiro
§ Rio Grande do Norte
§ Rio Grande do Sul
§ Rondônia
§ Roraima
§ Santa Catarina
§ São Paulo
§ Sergipe
§ Tocantins

States hold elections every four years and exercise a considerable amount of power. The 1988 constitution allows states to keep their own taxes, and mandates regular allocation of a share of the taxes collected locally by the federal government.

The Executive role is held by the Governador (Governor) and his appointed Secretários (Secretaries); the Legislative role is held by the Assembléia Legislativa (Legislative Assembly); and the Judiciary role, by the Tribunal de Justiça (Law Court). 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 27 governors must achieve more than 50 per cent 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 next set of elections took place in 2006.

The most important Brazilian states (in terms of population and economic power) are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, Bahia, Pernambuco and Pará.Brazil has no clear distinction between towns and cities (in effect, the Portuguese word cidade means both). The only possible difference is regarding the municipalities that have a Law Court and those that do not. The first are called Sedes de Comarca (Comarca being the territory under the rule of that Court). Other than this, only size and importance differs one from another.

The municipality (município) is a territory comprising one urban area, the sede (seat), from which it takes the name, and several other minor urban or rural areas, the distritos. 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 is allowed to have its own constitution which is called organic law (Lei Organica), 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 constitution, and to impersonate itself with symbols (like a flag, an anthem and a coat-of-arms). However, not all municipalities exercise the entirety 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 elected prefeito (Mayor) and an unicameral Câmara de Vereadores (Councilors 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 called Prefeitura.

Brazilian municipalities can vary widely in area and population. The municipality of Altamira, Brazil, in the State of Pará, with its 161,445.9 square kilometers is larger in area than many countries of 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, the State of Guanabara, now merged with Rio de Janeiro, which comprised the city of Rio de Janeiro.

The Federal District is an anomalous unit of the federation, as it is not organized the same manner as a municipality, does not possess the same autonomy as a state (but is ranked among them), and is closely related to the central power.

It is considered a single municipality, divided into the seat (Brasilia) and some urban districts (the so-called satellite cities). Satellites cities are created (in right) and governed directly by the governor of the federal district and possess no true identity.

- A. Jonathan Buhalis