In the midst of all of Bolsonaro’s bombast and bluster this past month, it has been easy to get distracted from other pressing issues. The past few years have brought a number of statutory rollbacks of anticorruption legislation in Brasília. But the brazenness with which a permissive new electoral code is now proceeding through Congress, and the relative silence with which the changes have been greeted, is stunning. It is all the more shocking given that the rewriting is taking place little more than a year before the 2022 election, and just four years another reform took place.
Four major election-related proposals have been under consideration in Congress during 2021: a law implementing Bolsonaro’s pet project of an “auditable” printed ballot, adoption of the single non-transferable vote, increases in public campaign finance, and a new electoral code. The first two proposals appear to have been defeated. The third is on hold, depending on the specifics of a budget law that has yet to be approved.
But perhaps most impressive is the new electoral code, which is moving at breakneck speed through the lower house. The process by which it has moved through the Chamber of Deputies since early August has been unconventional, breaking procedural rules and skipping debate.
More shocking still is the content. Although the bill is ostensibly a simple recompilation and reorganization of the complex electoral code, in many ways it represents a massive rewrite of electoral oversight. There are a few fig leaves of improvement in the bill, such as regulations on the dissemination of fake news and a simplification of procedural rules. But overall, as Rodrigo López Zilio notes, there are many worrisome aspects in the massive bill, which clocks in at more than 900 articles and 360 pages. López Zilio, a prosecutor and leading specialist in electoral law, highlights several aspects of the bill that suggest it is designed to dilute any sort of accountability for electoral malfeasance:
- a clause permitting private audits of candidate and party spending (rather than audits by electoral courts);
- restrictions on the scope of the issues electoral courts can review;
- a reduction in the statute of limitations on electoral crimes;
- a new requirement of a super-quorum for electoral courts to evaluate party spending;
- a reduction in the penalties for vote buying;
- and a runaround that would effectively allow some candidates with criminal records to run for office, reducing the effectiveness of the Clean Slate law (Lei da Ficha Limpa).
The new electoral code will soon be headed to the Senate, where it is likely to have the backing of a majority of legislators. If approved, this will be a significant setback for probity and accountability in the electoral system, and one more illustration of the costs of Bolsonaro’s bombast. For while Bolsonaro was out threatening democracy last month, in the shadows political parties were rewriting electoral law for their own benefit. The long-term damage may yet be significant.
By Luciano Da Ros and Matthew Taylor
Photo: Edilson Rodrigues/Agência Senado
