03/10/2024 – 8:08
On the eve of the first round of municipal elections, the PL and PT national directorates deposited more than R$217 million from the electoral fund into the accounts of mayoral candidates in the capitals. The amount already exceeds the total resources that another 21 of the 29 Brazilian parties will have to spend throughout the electoral process. The acronyms of former president Jair Bolsonaro and president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, respectively, hold the largest shares of the Electoral Campaign Financing Fund, which has R$4.9 billion available for this year’s election.
The main bets of PL and PT are in the Southeast Region, where candidates concentrate around 50% of the amount donated by the national subtitle directories so far, according to data from the DivulgaCandContas system until the end of September.
Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) received R$30 million from the national PT leadership for the dispute in São Paulo. He is the candidate who has received the most resources from Lula’s party, which has so far donated R$82.7 million to his bets in the capitals. After Boulos, there are PT members Rogério Correia, who is running for mayor of Belo Horizonte, with R$8 million, and Maria do Rosário, candidate in Porto Alegre, with R$7 million.
The main beneficiary of Bolsonaro’s party’s share in the Southeast is Alexandre Ramagem (PL), who is running for mayor of Rio. He has received R$26 million from the electoral fund so far. The PL has already transferred R$134.3 million to capital candidates. In addition to Ramagem, investment has been heavy in the campaigns of Ricardo Nunes (MDB), in São Paulo, and Bruno Engler (PL), in Belo Horizonte, with R$17 million and R$15 million donated, respectively.
Inequalities
For analysts heard by the Estadãothe disparity between party numbers may mean that parties with less financial power end up having to group together around PL and PT. “The result of this year’s elections will allow Congress and the parties to evaluate the effectiveness of the current electoral fund rule,” said political scientist José Álvaro Moisés, from USP.
“Democracy does not exist without resources, but the problem is that we are in a country of inequalities and resource needs for public policies. So, the question is about the amount allocated by Congress for itself and which ends up being used in a concentrated way by parties that will distance themselves greatly from the others”, stated Moisés.
Survey of Estadão Based on recent polls of voting intentions, it shows that candidacies boosted by the PL’s national directory have a chance of contesting the second round in 15 capitals. In addition to Nunes in São Paulo and Engler in Belo Horizonte, this is the case of candidates such as Sebastião Melo (MDB), in Porto Alegre, who has already received R$2.6 million from the PL, and Beto Pereira (PSDB), from Campo Grande , to whom Bolsonaro’s party donated R$7 million.
The second round chances of candidates who received money from the PT’s national directory are reduced to seven capitals, according to the most recent surveys. Fábio Novo (PT), in Teresina (R$3 million), and Adriana Accorsi (PT), in Goiânia (R$4.9 million), appear in the polls competing for a place in the second round, as do Boulos and Maria do Rosário.
Candidacies in the northeastern capitals have attracted the second largest amount of public resources from PL and PT among the regions of the country. In an attempt to reverse the local history that is more favorable to the left, the PL directory donated R$34.8 million to candidates for the main city halls. More than a third of this amount (R$ 13.2 million) is concentrated in André Fernandes (PL), in the dispute for mayor of Fortaleza. Party candidates in Maceió (JHC), Recife (Gilson Machado) and Aracaju (Emilia Correa) received between R$5 million and R$7 million.
The PT’s national directory, which donated R$19.9 million to allies in the Northeast, has so far prioritized transfers to candidacies in Natal (Natália Bonavides, R$6.7 million) and also in Fortaleza (Evandro Leitão, R$4 .3 million).
In addition to candidacies in the capitals, the national party directories transfer the “electoral fund” to local offices in the States and to candidates in smaller cities. For the PT state directory of Minas Gerais alone, for example, the amount transferred was R$29.7 million. For the Rondônia directory, PL donated R$6.3 million.
As most of the money, by law, must be used in the first round, the distribution of fundão resources is greater in this first phase of the electoral dispute. According to data from DivulgaCandContas, more than R$524 million appears as “donations” made by the PT national directory, which has R$619 million to use in total. On the national PL page, there are R$871 million in donations; the party is entitled to R$886 million from the fundão.
In a note to the report, the PT defended the system for distributing electoral fund resources. “The same criterion was applied in other legislatures, other elections, other historical periods, resulting in constant alternations in the relative position of the parties. Public financing of elections and part of party activities, respecting the criterion of representativeness, is a democratic guarantee against the privatization of politics”, stated the party.
The PL national directory was contacted for the report, but had not responded until the publication of this text. The space remains open.
Distortion
“Municipal elections work to indicate trends for the general elections,” said Creomar de Souza, from the consultancy Dharma Politics. “The effort of Bolsonarism and Lulopetism to generate a transformation in the city hall framework in the capitals has to do with the message they want to convey for 2026, when there will be a dispute for Congress.”
For him, the use of resources shows “the distortion of a system excessively based on public financing and an effort by the leaders to seek more the survival of the parties than the construction of an environment favorable to the proposition of public policies for the country”.
The information is from the newspaper The State of S. Paulo.
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