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RIO – This year’s municipal dispute has everything to be very different from the previous elections. It will happen not only in the middle of a pandemic that has already killed more than 140 thousand people in Brazil, but it will also be the first to take place after a series of changes in the rules and legislation with electoral impact, such as the end of the proportional coalitions for the Legislative and the requirement of an equitable distribution of the electoral fund for black candidates. In light of the unprecedented nature of the 2020 elections, O GLOBO listed some of the main factors that may contribute to their being outliers (see below).
Researcher at the Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa and author of the book “Viver em rede”, the political scientist Julio Aurelio Reis highlights the role that the pandemic and social networks will play in the novelty of the November electoral process. In his assessment, the crisis associated with Covid-19 anticipates a process that was already underway, that of the virtualization of campaigns.
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– It will be a transitional election. Society has become even more interconnected with the pandemic and the same will happen in the electoral world. The process that has been talked about since 2018 will increase, that social networks were more important than other media. Parties and candidates will need to be creative in establishing relationships with this network. It is transition because there is still a pre-virtual world in the heads of the parties. In addition, the pandemic will become the center of the debate, the point of escalation of the dispute, Reis notes.
Bruno Carazza, specialist in Electoral Law and Public Policy and professor at Ibmec and Fundação Dom Cabral, agrees that the pandemic has “pushed” the trend of social networks to become the main stage of elections. He points out that this year’s dispute should also point the direction of future elections in relation to the end of proportional coalitions in the Legislative, according to him, the great novelty of the 2020 elections.
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– The initial reaction of the parties was to cast as many candidates as possible to obtain votes from different sources, which will make the voter selection process difficult. It is also a direction for future elections. The end of the coalitions will be strengthened in 2022 because the barrier clause will be greater – says Carazza.
Check out the changes:
Election calendar
The pandemic had a direct effect on the electoral calendar. Congress enacted a constitutional amendment postponing the election, which normally takes place in October, to November 15 and 29, which also changed the date of party conventions, the deadline for nominations, and all other milestones. in dispute. Another impact refers to the application of the Law to Clean the Registry. The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) ruled this month that it is not possible to extend the ineligibility period for dirty candidates based on the postponement of the elections. Thus, candidates convicted of illegal acts whose sanction ends in October may participate in the election. Due to the pandemic, the TSE also developed a Health Safety Plan with hygiene rules, extended voting times and created a preferential schedule for voters over 60 years of age to vote, between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. .
Restriction on the streets
Another impact of the health crisis will be felt in the electoral campaign, which officially begins today. The Regional Electoral Courts (TRE) will have to define protocols for street agendas, but in Rio, for example, there is still no definition on what the rules will be. At the same time, some cities have eased restrictions on the movement of people. Analysts point out that one of the effects of the mobility restrictions will be the candidates’ even greater commitment to digital campaigns, which already marked the 2018 elections. Party conventions have already been held in a virtual or reduced way. The campaigns, however, must know the new rules for the dispute on the networks. In December, for example, the TSE issued a resolution regulating the online campaign. In it, the Court prohibited the mass shooting of messages.
Data Protection Act
Another change that should have an impact on digital campaigns is the General Data Protection Law (LGPD), which came into force on the 18th. The rule establishes that any citizen can demand from the public and private sector information on how their personal data is found . used. This will also apply to candidates. The move will affect the way they store and manipulate voter data. This is the case, for example, of the lists of messages sent by cell phone. If they receive a message via WhatsApp or SMS, the voter can ask how their telephone contact ended in the list of a certain candidacy and even look to the Public Ministry or the Electoral Justice to report, if there is no response. With the need to inform voters about how their data is used, the trend is for campaigns to build their own databases, making it difficult to use the information, for example, for campaigns targeting certain groups of databases. purchased.
End of coalitions
For the first time, the formation of coalitions for the office of councilor will no longer be allowed. Before, the votes of all the candidates and legends that made up the alliance were added and considered to determine the vacancies in the Legislative through the so-called electoral coefficient. With the change, approved in 2017, each party will present a closed list and only the votes of the acronym will be counted. The trend, according to analysts, is for parties to increase the number of their own candidacies. Another strategy will be to launch proper names to mayor to get votes for the Legislative. In most capitals, for example, the number of mayoral candidates has grown compared to 2016. A GLOBO survey of the 15 largest capitals in the country recorded a 35% increase (from 136 to 184) in the total registered to run for executives. municipalities of the 15 largest capitals.
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Black candidates
The TSE plenary decided that black candidates should have proportional access to the resources of the electoral fund and to radio and television time. Most ministers voted that the change would only take effect in the 2022 elections, but a preliminary injunction from Supreme Federal Court (STF) Minister Ricardo Lewandowski ensured that the rule was already valid for this year’s dispute. The expectation of the black movements involved in the mobilization for the proportional distribution of resources is that the new TSE rule will increase the number of black and brown candidates elected. In August, a poll released by GLOBO showed that, in the last elections, although they represented 42% of the 8,500 names in the race for the office of federal deputy, black candidates received only 28% of the fund’s resources. On average, white candidates totaled twice the investment distributed by the parties.
Little parties off TV
For the first time since re-democratization, some parties are expected to remain outside of free election hours on radio and television. Due to the barrier clause, approved in the 2017 political reform, parties such as Rede or PRTB, acronym for Vice President Hamilton Mourão, will not have the right to any radio and television schedule. They are acronyms that were not elected by nine federal deputies in at least nine units of the federation in the 2018 election or that did not reach at least 1.5% of the valid votes. In Rio, it will be the cases of Bandeira de Mello (Rede), Cyro García (PSTU) and Suêd Haidar (PMB). In São Paulo, Maria Helou (Rede), Vera Lúcia (PSTU), Levy Fidelix (PRTB) and Antonio Carlos Silva (PCO) are at parties without space on radio and television. The distribution of electoral hours has not yet been published by the Electoral Tribunal.
