There are three crucial differences between Brazil and the US when it comes to elections and political parties.
The freedom of speech in Brazil is limited. As most politicians fear their opponents, they have passed into law many restrictions on this basic human right:
1. TV and radio stations must be neutral and cannot endorse publicly one candidate, as if it were possible. There are rules governing even the time slice given to each candidate on debates and newscasts.
2. Candidates cannot speak about their beliefs and proposals before the official start of the campaign, few months before the election. They cannot even appear on TV shows to talk about their lives, achievements etc.
3. Any person can complain against any candidate advertisements, speeches and ideas in order to get them censored by an electoral court. Candidates can be fined for defamatory addresses, videos can be removed from the Internet, websites can be shutdown etc.
All the TV and radio broadcasts are supported by the taxpayers! The idea here is to give the same opportunity to all candidates, regardless their economic backgrounds.
The nomination processes are not democratic. Political parties are not required to appoint candidates through primaries. Among the largest parties, only PT holds primary elections regularly. Most parties have leaders (caciques) that control them as little dictators for decades!
PT holds primary elections??? HAHAHA! NO! Cacique Lula appoints all of them. Only PSDB made primaries regarding SP mayor elections.
ReplyDeleteYes, it does since the 80s, although Lula sometimes has his preferences, as he had this time and when he chose Dilma to run for president.
DeletePSDB does not fare better, at the other hand. You know Serra, FHC and few other decrepit elders rule.
That's why there's almost no renovation in Brazilian parties.
The American way is far superior. Democracy should begin at home.
More often than not making your voice heard requires money. If one agrees with this premise then limiting campaign donations is tantamount to limiting free speech. It could also be argued that redistributing money in a way that you take from some individuals or corporations via taxes, and then hand it over to others in the form of a fundo partidário (public funds given to political parties) is the same as financing free speech in one party by reducing free speech in another. Since taxes are by nature coercive then in the end someone has less of a voice then he/she would normally have just to finance someone else's free speech. So the question in the end, to me at least, is: free speech is an individual right but does that mean a person be entitled in having said right financed by soemone else?
ReplyDeleteYes, I think so.
DeleteEvery other year some local politician asks me for a donation. I just wonder how many favors politicians owe to the people that finance them. It's less harmful to the society to let them campaign without private money, I think.