In a few days, the PTB bench jumped from 26 elected deputies to 43. It was the beginning of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first term, and negotiations in Congress inflated Roberto Jefferson’s party, which had decided to join the new government. The movement reached its highest point on January 31, 2003, when 30 parliamentarians changed their party in a single day, a record only surpassed by the date of creation of the PSD, when 51 deputies moved to the new house.
In that 2003, with the opening of the first Legislature of this century, another party began to swell. Valdemar Costa Neto’s PL benefited from the arrival of new supporters willing to support Lula. The party would end the period with 15 more deputies, a phenomenon that would be repeated with much greater intensity now.
After receiving the adhesion of the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, the party left the 2022 party window with a positive balance of 35 deputies – it lost 15 and received 50. Its elected bench, which, out of 33 parliamentarians, reached 74, according to data until the last Friday of the Chamber of Deputies. A number that, according to the deputy leader of the bench, captain Augusto (PL-SP), should grow and reach 77.
The history of party changes in the five legislatures of this century shows that it is not just the survival of parties and politicians that counts when a deputy breaks ties with the party that elected him. Governmentism and the search for ideologically amorphous associations are also components of the change. And this time, in the 2022 party window, it was no different.
This is shown by the survey carried out by the Estadão of the party changes of deputies registered by the Chamber from 2003 to 2022. “The more ideological the party, the more difficult it is to change. When they are amorphous from an ideological point of view, change is easier,” said the political scientist and columnist for the Estadão Carlos Pereira, professor at the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV/EBAPE).
Total
It’s as if every week a congressman changes his association. The number includes the cases in which the parliamentarian was left without a party and the cases of deputies who changed their party more than once in the same Legislature. Centrão parties were the main beneficiaries. In addition to them, the new subtitles profited – when the legislation allowed deputies to take TV time and Party Fund resources to the new association and the rules for merging subtitles were less restrictive.
Pereira says the numbers show that these parties are satellites of any government and maximize gains in any governing coalition. “They rarely run presidential candidates or are the president’s parties, except now, when the president does the migration,” he said.
The trajectory of the PL/PR in this century is unique. First, the legend housed José Alencar, Lula’s vice president. The party elected 26 deputies in October 2002, but already at the time of inauguration, in 2003, it had 33 parliamentarians. He reached 46 and ended Lula’s first term with 37, after Costa Neto resigned as deputy due to the monthly allowance scandal. In the current legislature, again the proximity to power favored the legend.
In addition to the president himself having migrated to the acronym, the PL took advantage of another striking feature of the exchanges in this party window: the ideological component. Almost all the members of the Bolsonarista shock troops of the Chamber accompanied the president. They left União Brasil, a party born from the merger between the DEM and the PSL, and went to the PL. A significant number of members of the bullet caucus migrated there, mainly soldiers elected in 2022.
Incompatible
The Bolsonaristas movement provoked reactions within the PL. Federal deputy Marcelo Ramos, vice president of the Chamber, who was one of those who left the party due to incompatibility with President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters.
“I do not allow myself to participate in any project that jeopardizes democracy. I defend democracy and abhor torture. And, therefore, it would be incompatible to belong to the party of a president that I repudiate”, said Ramos. In his first term in the Chamber, Ramos stood out for his dialogue with all parties.
His departure from the PL took place before the party window and the endorsement of the legend’s president. “I was the first to know that Bolsonaro was going to join the PL. Valdemar called me. He was very straight with me.”
The deputy also obtained a favorable decision from the then president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Luís Roberto Barroso, for the change. Since 2007, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) considers that the mandate of the federal deputy – elected in a proportional vote – belongs to the party and not to the parliamentarian. Therefore, the change of legend without just cause can lead to the loss of the mandate, as long as it is requested by the party leadership.
In addition to the just cause – represented by the “substantial change or the reiterated deviation from the party program and the serious personal discrimination” -, the parliamentarian can only change the caption during the so-called party window, which takes place in the year of the election. In the current period, the party that lost the most deputies was União Brasil. [BOLD]It was born with 81 parliamentarians and had already been reduced to 40.
Government
Governmentism also explains the growth of Progressistas (PP) – the party of the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (AL) – and Republicanos, which also hosted part of the Bolsonarista candidates for this year’s elections, such as former Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Freitas, pre-candidate for the government of São Paulo. The Progressives reached 54 deputies while the Republicans now have 51 seats.
For the first time in the century, the PT increased its bench in a window – it had 54 and now it has 55. The PSDB crisis was reflected in the reduction of its bench – the party lost five deputies in this window.
Although they no longer bring funds from the fund and TV time, experts say that one of the reasons the deputies are disputed by the parties is the prospect of being candidates who will bring votes to the party – and it is precisely the number of elected representatives that will determine the share of the electoral and party funds that each will have over the next four years.
The data obtained by Estadão also show that in this century the political opposition parties – such as the DEM, PSDB and Cidadania – were the most affected by the loss of deputies, in addition to the parties that had presidents of the Republic, such as the PT and the MDB. “The parties that launch candidates for president dwindle, because those who lose will live four years on bread and water, without access to benefits controlled by the Executive and the direction of the Legislative”, said Pereira.
fragmentation
The context of the beginning of the century of partisan infidelity was being replaced over the years: first, by the period in which parties with benches appeared until reaching the current format of the window for change. Each of these moments contributed, in its own way, to party fragmentation, a phenomenon that began to slowly ebb after the institution of the performance clause or barrier – which limits access to the Party Fund and the legislative functioning of parties that do not have a minimum performance in elections. .
Currently, 23 parties are represented in the Chamber – this number reached 30, among those elected in 2018. Experts believe that the end of coalitions – despite the possibility of federations – and the requirement that parties reach a minimum of 80% of the party coefficient to have access to the distribution of seats in the Chamber can lead to a further reduction in fragmentation.
The size of the impact is just not known. “It is still not possible to know how the party fragmentation index will be. It is still very high, despite the changes in this Legislature”, said political scientist Ana Lúcia Henrique Teixeira Gomes. According to her, in February 2022, before the current window, this index was at 15.45. “It was 8.4 in 2003 and it reached 16.4 in 2019.”
According to her, the performance of the TSE, by overturning the barrier clause in 2006, was fundamental for the increase of party fragmentation in the country. Currently, Congress has only 4 parties that can be considered large, that is, with more than 10% of the total number of parliamentarians: the PL, the PT, the PP and the Republicans – there were 2 in 2019 (PT and PSL). The three largest parties in the Chamber now hold 36% of seats – in 2003, the three largest parties accounted for 49.3% and were 28.2% in 2018.
The dynamics of partisan migrations in Congress in the period between 2003 and 2022 can be symbolized by three dates: January 31, 2003, October 26, 2010 and April 11, 2018. The three dates together recorded 95 changes in the legend of federal deputies , each of them representing a distinct period of migrations that affect the balance of the plenary, the governability of presidents and the survival of politicians and parties.
The first one represents the time when deputies normally changed parties at the beginning of the legislature, attracted by the support for the government. “And 2003 is still a symbol of the passing of the guard, a great change from the governments of Fernando Henrique to Lula”, highlighted Carlos Pereira. The then legislature recorded 351 exchanges. In fact, major changes in the Executive seem to encourage an increase in party migration, as also happened in the 55th legislature (2005-20118), when the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (PT) was registered, concluding the PT era in the Presidency. The period had 263 exchanges.
New
Another phenomenon caused huge partisan migrations in Congress: the creation of new parties with elected deputies. The first was the PSOL, a dissident of the PT. But the biggest of all cases was that of Gilberto Kassab’s PSD. The date of its creation – October 26, 2010 – still holds the record for party changes in a single day. Solidarity, PROS and PMB then followed until the door was closed with the change in legislation.
With the creation of the party window, the changes focused on the period in which the deputy can leave the party without losing his mandate. For Ana Lúcia Teixeira, the mechanism is correct, as the deputy must have the opportunity to calculate what is best for his future.
In the last legislature, the day that concentrated the greatest number of changes was April 11, 2018, during the window, with 14 migrations. The same phenomenon should occur this time, causing the record to happen once again in the window.
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