This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. (November 2012) |
Brazil elects on the national level a head of state — the president — and a legislature. The president is elected to a four-year term by absolute majority vote through a two-round system. The National Congress (Congresso Nacional) has two chambers. The Chamber of Deputies (Câmara dos Deputados) has 513 members, elected to a four-year term by proportional representation. The Federal Senate (Senado Federal) has 81 members, elected to an eight-year term, with elections every four years for alternatively one-third and two-thirds of the seats. Brazil has a multi-party system with a high effective number of parties and political fragmentation.[1] Often no one party has a chance of gaining a majority alone, and so they must work with each other to form coalition governments.
Latest election
editPresidential election
edit| Candidate | Running mate | Party | First round | Second round | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | ||||
| Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva | Geraldo Alckmin (Brazilian Socialist Party | Workers' Party (Brazil) | 57,259,504 | 48.43 | 60,345,999 | 50.90 | |
| Jair Bolsonaro (incumbent) | Walter Braga Netto | Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006) | 51,072,345 | 43.20 | 58,206,354 | 49.10 | |
| Simone Tebet | Mara Gabrilli (Brazilian Social Democracy Party | Brazilian Democratic Movement | 4,915,423 | 4.16 | |||
| Ciro Gomes | Ana Paula Matos | Democratic Labour Party (Brazil) | 3,599,287 | 3.04 | |||
| Soraya Thronicke | Marcos Cintra | Brazil Union | 600,955 | 0.51 | |||
| Luiz Felipe d'Avila | Tiago Mitraud | New Party (Brazil) | 559,708 | 0.47 | |||
| Kelmon Souza | Luiz Cláudio Gamonal | Brazilian Labour Party (current) | 81,129 | 0.07 | |||
| Leonardo Péricles | Samara Martins | Popular Unity (Brazil) | 53,519 | 0.05 | |||
| Sofia Manzano | Antonio Alves | Brazilian Communist Party | 45,620 | 0.04 | |||
| Vera Lúcia Salgado | Kunã Yporã Tremembé | United Socialist Workers' Party | 25,625 | 0.02 | |||
| José Maria Eymael | João Barbosa Bravo | Christian Democracy (Brazil) | 16,604 | 0.01 | |||
| Total | 118,229,719 | 100.00 | 118,552,353 | 100.00 | |||
Parliamentary election
editChamber of Deputies
edit | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party or alliance | Votes | % | Seats | |||
| Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006) | 18,228,958 | 16.54 | 99 | |||
| Brazil of Hope | Workers' Party (Brazil) | 15,354,125 | 13.93 | 68 | ||
| Communist Party of Brazil | 6 | |||||
| Green Party (Brazil) | 6 | |||||
| Brazil Union | 10,262,035 | 9.31 | 59 | |||
| Progressistas | 8,704,341 | 7.90 | 47 | |||
| Social Democratic Party (Brazil, 2011) | 8,322,183 | 7.55 | 42 | |||
| Brazilian Democratic Movement | 7,992,988 | 7.25 | 42 | |||
| Republicans (Brazil) | 7,618,108 | 6.91 | 41 | |||
| Always Forward (Brazil) | Brazilian Social Democracy Party | 5,000,910 | 4.54 | 13 | ||
| Cidadania | 5 | |||||
| PSOL REDE Federation | Socialism and Liberty Party | 4,650,080 | 4.22 | 12 | ||
| Sustainability Network | 2 | |||||
| Brazilian Socialist Party | 4,202,376 | 3.81 | 14 | |||
| Democratic Labour Party (Brazil) | 3,843,174 | 3.49 | 17 | |||
| Podemos (Brazil) | 3,614,581 | 3.28 | 12 | |||
| Avante (political party) | 2,205,176 | 2.00 | 7 | |||
| Social Christian Party (Brazil) | 1,951,486 | 1.77 | 6 | |||
| Solidariedade | 1,728,083 | 1.57 | 4 | |||
| Patriota | 1,548,140 | 1.40 | 4 | |||
| Brazilian Labour Party (current) | 1,433,638 | 1.30 | 1 | |||
| New Party (Brazil) | 1,360,590 | 1.23 | 3 | |||
| Republican Party of the Social Order | 1,070,953 | 0.97 | 3 | |||
| Brazilian Labour Renewal Party | 294,315 | 0.27 | 0 | |||
| Party of National Mobilization | 256,830 | 0.23 | 0 | |||
| Act (Brazil) | 159,865 | 0.15 | 0 | |||
| Christian Democracy (Brazil) | 138,818 | 0.13 | 0 | |||
| Brazilian Woman's Party | 85,722 | 0.08 | 0 | |||
| Brazilian Communist Party | 85,642 | 0.08 | 0 | |||
| Popular Unity (Brazil) | 55,780 | 0.05 | 0 | |||
| United Socialist Workers' Party | 27,995 | 0.03 | 0 | |||
| Workers' Cause Party | 8,660 | 0.01 | 0 | |||
| Undetermined | 5,632 | 0.01 | 0 | |||
| Total | 110,211,184 | 100.00 | 513 | |||
Federal Senate
edit | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party or alliance | Votes | % | Seats | |||
| Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006) | 25,278,764 | 24.86 | 13 | |||
| Brazilian Socialist Party | 13,615,846 | 13.39 | 1 | |||
| Brazil of Hope | Workers' Party (Brazil) | 12,456,553 | 12.25 | 9 | ||
| Green Party (Brazil) | 475,597 | 0.47 | 0 | |||
| Communist Party of Brazil | 299,013 | 0.29 | 0 | |||
| Social Democratic Party (Brazil, 2011) | 11,312,512 | 11.12 | 10 | |||
| Progressistas | 7,592,391 | 7.47 | 7 | |||
| Brazil Union | 5,465,486 | 5.37 | 12 | |||
| Social Christian Party (Brazil) | 4,285,485 | 4.21 | 1 | |||
| Republicans (Brazil) | 4,259,279 | 4.19 | 3 | |||
| Brazilian Democratic Movement | 3,882,458 | 3.82 | 10 | |||
| Brazilian Labour Party (current) | 3,621,532 | 3.56 | 0 | |||
| Podemos (Brazil) | 1,776,283 | 1.75 | 6 | |||
| Democratic Labour Party (Brazil) | 1,650,222 | 1.62 | 2 | |||
| Always Forward (Brazil) | Brazilian Social Democracy Party | 1,394,547 | 1.37 | 4 | ||
| Cidadania | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | |||
| Avante (political party) | 1,369,655 | 1.35 | 0 | |||
| Brazilian Labour Renewal Party | 758,938 | 0.75 | 0 | |||
| PSOL REDE Federation | Socialism and Liberty Party | 677,345 | 0.67 | 0 | ||
| Sustainability Network | 8,133 | 0.01 | 1 | |||
| New Party (Brazil) | 479,593 | 0.47 | 0 | |||
| Popular Unity (Brazil) | 291,294 | 0.29 | 0 | |||
| Republican Party of the Social Order | 214,525 | 0.21 | 1 | |||
| United Socialist Workers' Party | 135,599 | 0.13 | 0 | |||
| Christian Democracy (Brazil) | 101,722 | 0.10 | 0 | |||
| Patriota | 76,729 | 0.08 | 0 | |||
| Brazilian Communist Party | 64,569 | 0.06 | 0 | |||
| Brazilian Woman's Party | 61,350 | 0.06 | 0 | |||
| Party of National Mobilization | 27,812 | 0.03 | 0 | |||
| Workers' Cause Party | 26,614 | 0.03 | 0 | |||
| Act (Brazil) | 24,076 | 0.02 | 0 | |||
| Solidariedade | 19,408 | 0.02 | 0 | |||
| Total | 101,703,330 | 100.00 | 81 | |||
Schedule
editElection
edit| Year | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Presidential year | Off-year | Local year | Off-year | Presidential year |
| President | Yes | No | Yes | ||
| Senate | 27 seats | No | 54 seats | ||
| Chamber | All 513 seats | No | All 531 seats | ||
| Governor | All 27 federative units | No | All 27 federative units | ||
| Legislative Assemblies | All 27 federative units | No | All 27 federative units | ||
| Mayor | No | All 5,568 municipalities | No | ||
| Municipal Chambers | No | All 5,568 municipalities | No | ||
Inauguration
edit| Position | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Presidential (January) National Congress (February) Gubernatorial (January) States and Federal District Parliaments (January) |
None | Mayors (January) City Councils (January) |
None | Presidential (January) National Congress (February) Gubernatorial (January) States and Federal District Parliaments (January) |
None | Mayors (January) City Councils (January) |
None | Presidential (January) National Congress (February) Gubernatorial (January) States and Federal District Parliaments (January) |
| President and vice president |
1 January | None | 1 January | None | 5 January | ||||
| National Congress | 1 February | None | 1 February | None | 1 February | ||||
| States, cities and municipalities | 1 January | None | 1 January | None | 1 January | None | 1 January | None | 1 January (state parliaments) 6 January (Governors) |
Electoral systems
editA presidential candidate in Brazil needs to gain fifty per cent plus one of votes to be named as winner. A second-round runoff is mandated if no candidate receives fifty per cent plus one of votes.[2]
Deputies are elected to the Chamber of Deputies using a form of party-list proportional representation known as the open list. Seats are distributed in 27 multi-member constituencies based on the Federation Units (26 States and the Federal District), ranging from 8 to 70 seats. Seats are allocated through the D'Hondt method.[3]
Senators are elected to the Federal Senate with a plurality of the vote in a first-past-the-post system, which is not proportional.[4] Three senators are elected for each state and for the Federal District.[5]
In lower levels of government, the state legislative assemblies and city councils are elected using an open list proportional representation system. Seats are allocated using a version of the D'Hondt method where only parties who receive at least V/n votes (where V is the total number of votes cast and n is the total number of seats to be filled) may win seats in the legislature.[6][7]
Voting in Brazil is compulsory for all literate citizens over 18 and under 70, and optional for citizens who are aged 16 and 17, older than 70 or illiterate. Brazil introduced compulsory voting into its Electoral Code in 1932 and lowered the voting age from 18 to 16 in the 1988 constitution.[8] The 1988 constitution also granted voluntary suffrage to the illiterate citizens of Brazil.[9]
Brazilian voting machines
edit
Electronic voting was first introduced to Brazil in 1996, with the first tests carried out in the state of Santa Catarina. The primary design goal of the voting machine (Portuguese: urna eletrônica) is extreme simplicity, the model being a public phone booth. The voting machines perform three steps – voter identification, secure voting, and tallying – in a single process, aiming to eliminate fraud based on forged or falsified public documents.[citation needed] Political parties have access to the voting machine's programs before the election for auditing.
As of 2023[update], Brazil is the only country in the world to conduct its elections entirely through electronic voting.[10]Presidential elections by party
edit
Election results 1982–2018
editBrazilian legislative elections (Chamber of Deputies), 1982–2018
| Parties | 1982 | 1986 | 1990 | 1994 | 1998 | 2002 | 2006 | 2010 | 2014 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workers' Party | 3.5 | 6.9 | 10.2 | 12.8 | 13.2 | 18.4 | 15.0 | 16.9 | 14.0 | 10.3 |
| Brazilian Democratic Movement | 43.0 | 48,1 | 19.3 | 20.3 | 15.2 | 13.4 | 14.6 | 13.0 | 11.1 | 5.5 |
| Brazilian Social Democracy Party | - | - | 8.7 | 13.9 | 17.5 | 14.3 | 13.6 | 11.9 | 11.4 | 6.0 |
| Liberal Front Party/Democrats | - | 17.7 | 12.4 | 12.9 | 17.3 | 13.4 | 10.9 | 7.6 | 4.2 | 4.7 |
| Liberal Party / Party of the Republic | - | 2.8 | 4.3 | 3.5 | 2.5 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 7.6 | 5.8 | 5.3 |
| Brazilian Socialist Party | - | 0.9 | 1.9 | 2.2 | 3.4 | 5.3 | 6.2 | 7.1 | 6.5 | 5.5 |
| Progressistas | - | - | - | 6.9 | 11.3 | 7.8 | 7.1 | 6.6 | 6.4 | 5.6 |
| Democratic Labour Party | 5.8 | 6.5 | 10.0 | 7.2 | 5.7 | 5.1 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 3.6 | 4.6 |
| Brazilian Labour Party | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5.6 | 5.2 | 5.7 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 4.0 | 2.1 |
| Green Party | - | - | - | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 3.6 | 3.8 | 2.1 | 1.6 |
| Social Christian Party | - | - | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 1.9 | 3.2 | 2.5 | 1.8 |
| Communist Party of Brazil | - | 0.8 | 0.9 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 2.8 | 2.0 | 1.4 |
| Popular Socialist Party | - | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.6 | 1.3 | 3.1 | 3.9 | 2.6 | 2.0 | 1.6 |
| Brazilian Republican Party | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0.3 | 1.7 | 4.5 | 5.1 |
| Socialism and Liberty Party | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.8 | 2.8 |
| Party of National Mobilization | - | - | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 0.6 |
| Democratic Social / Reform Progressive Party | 43.2 | 7.8 | 8.9 | 9.4 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| National Reconstruction Party / Christian Labour Party | - | - | 8.3 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.6 |
| Christian Democratic Party / Christian Social Democratic Party / Christian Democracy | - | 1.2 | 3.0 | - | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.4 |
| Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order | - | - | - | 0.7 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 1.0 | - | - | - |
| Social Democratic Party | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 6.2 | 5.8 |
| Republican Party of the Social Order | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.0 | 2.1 |
| Solidariedade | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.7 | 2.0 |
| National Labor Party / Podemos | - | - | - | - | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 2.3 |
| National Ecologic Party / Patriota | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0.7 | 1.5 |
| Labour Party of Brazil / Avante | - | - | 0.2 | - | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 1.9 |
| Humanist Party of Solidarity | - | - | - | - | - | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 1.5 |
| Progressive Republican Party | - | - | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 0.9 |
| Social Liberal Party | - | - | - | - | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 11.7 |
| Brazilian Labour Renewal Party | - | - | - | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
| New Party | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.8 |
| Sustainability Network | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0.8 |
| Others | 0.0 | 2.8 | 3.7 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 1.5 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.7 | 0.7 |
Referendums
editBrazil has held three national referendums in its history. In the first, held on January 6, 1963, the people voted for the re-establishment of the presidential system of government (82% of valid ballots), which had been modified by a constitutional amendment in 1961. A second referendum, as ordered by the Federal Constitution of 1988, was held on April 21, 1993, when the voters voted for a republican form of government and reaffirmed the presidential system.
A third national referendum, on the prohibition of the commerce of personal firearms and ammunition, was held on October 23, 2005. The ban proposal was rejected by 64% of the electorate.
See also
editNotes
editReferences
edit- ^ Gallagher, Michael. "Election Indices" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 29 July 2024. Retrieved 29 July 2024.
- ^ Brazil: Lula renounces candidacy ahead of presidential poll
- ^ "Grumpy about voting reform". The Economist. 2011-02-22. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
- ^ "The Federal Senate". Portal da Câmara dos Deputados. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
- ^ Andrianantoandro, Andy (2010-10-14). "Brazil's Presidential Hopefuls Face Runoff, National Congress Needs Reform". FairVote.org. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
- ^ "Como funciona o sistema proporcional?". Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (Superior Electoral Court). Archived from the original on 2017-09-02. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
- ^ Romao, Mauricio (2010-05-05). "Parlamentares "Eleitos Por Média"". Retrieved 2017-09-01.
- ^ ""Voting is compulsory for Brazilians aged 18 to 70"". Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (Superior Electoral Court). Archived from the original on 2020-11-11. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
- ^ Power, Timothy J. (2009). "Compulsory for Whom? Mandatory Voting and Electoral Participation in Brazil, 1986-2006". Journal of Politics in Latin America. 1 (1): 97–122. doi:10.1177/1866802x0900100105.
- ^ Stott, Michael; Pooler, Michael; Harris, Bryan (June 22, 2023). "The discreet US campaign to defend Brazil's election". Financial Times. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
External links
edit- Adam Carr's Election Archive
- Simulated voting machine Archived 2010-10-26 at the Wayback Machine (Portuguese) Courtesy of the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court website. (Java required)
- Brief history of electronic voting in Brazil Archived 2010-05-27 at the Wayback Machine
- Brazil: The Perfect Electoral Crime (II) Archived 2011-06-13 at the Wayback Machine (Security analysis of the Brazilian voting machines by James Burk, Oct. 21, 2006)
- Electoral Law of Brazil
- Inelegibility Law of Brazil