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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BRASILIA 001055 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV SOCI ECON BR
SUBJECT: BRAZIL'S MUNICIPAL ELECTION PRIMER - PART I 
 
¶1. This is Part I of a two-part series on Brazil's October 
municipal elections.  This cable describes the structure and 
implementation of the elections, and Part II examines the 
various races in play around the country. 
 
SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW 
-------------------- 
¶2.  On October 3, Brazilians go to the polls to select the 
Mayors and City Councils of all of the 5,560 municipalities 
in the country.  These elections are important on two levels: 
 they are an interim report card on the popularity of the 
Lula administration and the various parties, and they will 
bring to power the local officials who are key to 
implementing national programs and maintaining grass-roots 
party strength.  In many municipalities --particularly the 
big cities-- the elections will also have an impact on 
national party coalitions into the future.  Brazil's 
constitution regulates all elections and their timing, so 
that the President/Federal Congress and Governors/State 
Assemblies are up for election every four years (i.e., 2002, 
2006), while the Mayors and City Councils are elected in the 
off-cycles (i.e., 2004, 2008).  All elected officials in 
Brazil serve four-year terms, except Federal Senators who 
serve eight years.  Executive officials, including Mayors, 
can serve only two consecutive terms.  As described below, 
Brazil uses a combination of majority and plurality voting 
(for executive offices, meaning a second round may be 
necessary); and proportional voting for open party lists (for 
legislative offices).  The electoral process, including the 
calendar and campaign propaganda, is tightly regulated and 
overseen by a hierarchy of Electoral Tribunals.  END SUMMARY 
AND OVERVIEW. 
 
 
WHO IS BEING ELECTED? 
--------------------- 
¶3.  The Mayors and Vice Mayors (elected on a slate) and 
unicameral City Councils in each of Brazil's 5,560 
municipalities are up for election on October 3. 
Municipalities range in size from the city of Sao Paulo with 
10.4 million people to towns of a thousand inhabitants.  226 
municipalities have populations greater than 100,000.  City 
Councils in small towns have authorities basically limited to 
community health, primary education, and municipal fee 
collection.  City Councils range in size from 7 to 55 
members, depending on the town's population.  The average 
municipality has 32,000 inhabitants and 13 Council members. 
The exact number of Council members to be elected this year 
has yet to be determined, because a recent Supreme Electoral 
Tribunal (TSE) ruling recalibrated the number of Council 
members per municipality.  That ruling would cut the number 
of Council members nationwide from 60,300 to 51,700.  While 
this would be a significant cost savings, particularly in 
small towns, the parties in Congress are loathe to see so 
many seats evaporate.  They are hurrying to pass a 
constitutional amendment that could result in 55,200 
Councilpersons nationwide.  The amendment must pass by June 
10 to overcome the TSE decision and affect this year's 
elections. 
 
 
ELECTION CALENDER 
----------------- 
¶4.  The electoral calendar is established by the TSE.  For 
those unfamiliar with the closely-regulated process, the 
dates are instructive. 
 
June 10-30, 2004 - Convention season: coalitions and 
candidate lists finalized. 
 
July 1 - Broadcast propaganda blackout begins.  No paid 
propaganda, polls, or programming favoring a candidate on 
radio or TV. 
 
July 3 - Ban on hiring and firing of public servants; ban on 
institutional publicity (e.g., public officials inaugurating 
public works). 
 
July 6 - First day of propaganda period, including rallies, 
posters and, sadly, sound trucks. 
 
Aug 17-Sept 30 - Period of free broadcast propaganda on TV 
and radio (see paras 5-6). 
 
Sept 18 - Start of period during which no candidate can be 
arrested, unless caught in the act of a crime. 
 
Sept 30 - Last day of broadcast propaganda, political rallies 
and debates. 
 
Oct 2 - Last day for sound trucks and pamphleteering. 
 
Oct 3 - ELECTION DAY (first round), polls open 8:00 am -5:00 
pm.  Within hours after polls close, results transmitted from 
nearly all 355,000 computerized voting booths to the TSE in 
Brasilia, which will release partial vote counts that 
evening. 
 
Second-round procedures (where necessary) similar to first 
round.  Oct 18-30 is free broadcast propaganda period. 
 
Oct 31 - ELECTION DAY (second round, where necessary). 
 
 
PROPAGANDA AND POLLING 
---------------------- 
¶5.  Election propaganda is tightly controlled in placement 
and content.  Placement runs from outdoor billboards to 
broadcast media to sound trucks, each with its own set of 
regulations.  For example, billboard owners must register 
their signs by June 25 with the local electoral judge, who 
then holds a lottery to distribute the billboards randomly to 
candidates.  Sound trucks must stop broadcasting at 10 pm and 
cannot be within 200 meters of government offices or 
hospitals.  Rallies must end at midnight.  Rules are 
specific:  propaganda cannot incite a state of passion nor 
try to trick voters, cannot defame an opponent or disrespect 
national symbols (nor provoke animosity toward the military). 
 Posters can be hung from bridges but not trees.  After the 
election, each campaign must clean up its posters from public 
spaces.  Parties monitor each other and are quick to complain 
to electoral judges about violations. 
 
¶6.  The free broadcast propaganda is a uniquely successful 
Brazilian institution.  Visiting US congresspersons, who may 
spend 90% of their campaign funds on TV time, express 
admiration for a system that provides free airtime to all 
candidates, thus reducing the need for incessant fundraising 
and the influence of donors.  From Aug 17 to Sept 30, mayoral 
races get airtime on Mon, Wed, and Fri; while City Council 
races have time on Tues, Thurs, and Sat.  The radio slots on 
these days are 7:00-7:30am and 12:00-12:30pm.  The TV times 
are 1:00-1:30pm plus the key 8:30-9:00pm prime time slot. 
The ads run on all channels simultaneously.  The minutes 
within these periods are distributed to the parties according 
to a formula mostly based on the size of the party caucuses 
in the Federal Chamber of Deputies, while still assuring that 
microparties get a few seconds of precious airtime each day. 
Parties in coalitions can merge their allotted times.  Thus 
the large PT, PMDB, PFL, and PSDB parties may run five or 
seven-minute ads each day.  The system is closely policed by 
all parties, with complaints quickly adjudicated by electoral 
judges who mete out punishments by docking seconds or minutes 
of airtime. 
 
¶7.  Public opinion polls are also tightly controlled. 
Beginning on January 1, polling agencies must register each 
poll with the electoral tribunals both before and after 
distributing the results.  The registration includes poll 
results, who contracted the survey, costs and methodology. 
Candidates have the right to challenge a poll to an electoral 
judge, who can order a polling firm to open its records, 
suspend a survey, or clarify results already released. 
Pollsters breaking the rules can be heavily fined. 
 
 
CAMPAIGN FINANCING 
------------------ 
¶8.  There are no limits on donations or spending.  Campaigns 
must register their financial committes with the Electoral 
Tribunal, and thirty days after the election they must file 
their financial statements.  Funds can come from the 
candidates themselves, personal or corporate donations, or 
fund-raising events.  Donations cannot come from foreign 
entities or public funds.  Donations must be identified by 
origin.  Unidentified donations cannot be spent in the 
campaign, though they can be retained by the party and used 
to fund party research or think-tanks. 
 
¶9.  Campaign financing rules are fairly lax by US standards 
and --owing to the free TV time-- the sums involved are 
modest:  in the 2002 elections for President/Federal Congress 
and Governors/State Assemblies, 19,000 candidates spent a 
declared total of R$830 million (about USD208 million, or 
about USD 11,000 per candidate).  Yet there are frequent 
allegations of illegal campaign financing and the so-called 
"caixa dois" ("second drawer"), i.e., secret campaign slush 
funds.  For example, the Waldomiro Diniz scandal that erupted 
in February 2004 involved a political advisor to President 
Lula who allegedly solicited bribes from numbers racketeers 
in 2002 to funnel into Workers' Party campaigns; the 
allegations have not been verified.  Similarly, last week (a 
year and a half after the case was filed) the Supreme 
Electoral Tribunal cleared Brasilia Governor Joaquim Roriz of 
charges that he funded his 2002 campaign with R$48 million in 
public money funneled through local institutions and 
consultants.  A political reform bill that would provide a 
fixed pot of public money to finance all campaigns is now in 
Congress but will not pass this year. 
 
 
THE ELECTORAL TRIBUNALS 
----------------------- 
¶10.  Brazil's elections are overseen by a hierarchy of 
electoral tribunals.  At the top is the Supreme Electoral 
Court (TSE), an ad hoc body comprising seven members:  three 
judges from the Supreme Federal Court, two from the Supreme 
Justice Court, and two lawyers, all serving two-year terms on 
the tribunal.  Below the TSE are twenty-seven Regional 
Electoral Courts (TREs), one in each state; and below the 
TREs are electoral judges in each municipality and citizens' 
voting boards at each polling place. 
 
 
VOTING AND TABULATION PROCEDURE 
------------------------------- 
¶11.  Voting in Brazil is mandatory for citizens 18-70 years 
old and is optional for the illiterate, those 16 to 18, and 
those over 70.  Military conscripts cannot vote.  There will 
be about 112 million eligible voters this year.  In general, 
Brazilian executive offices (President, Governor, Mayor) are 
elected by majority voting, meaning that if no candidate 
surpasses 50% of valid votes in the first round, the top two 
candidates go to a second-round runoff.  However, in a 
cost-saving measure, plurality voting is used in the 96% of 
municipalities that have less than 200,000 voters (thus, 
U.S.-style, the leading first-round candidate becomes mayor, 
even if she receives less than 50% of the vote).  Therefore, 
there may be just a few dozen second-round mayoral runoffs 
this year.  All mayors will be sworn in on January 1, 2005. 
 
¶12.  Selection of legislatures, including City Councils, is 
done by a complicated open list proportional voting system, 
in which citizens can cast votes either for parties or 
candidates.  There are no wards for municipal elections, all 
candidates run citywide.  A hypothetical city of 1 million 
residents (i.e., about 620,000 voters) would have a City 
Council of 21 members.  If 20% of voters do not show up or 
cast null votes, then there is a pool of 500,000 valid votes, 
meaning that each of the 21 Council seats would require 
23,800 votes.  Each party then totals up the votes it 
receives both as a party and for its individual candidates. 
If a party fails to reach 23,800 total votes, it does not win 
any seats at this stage and its votes are "lost".  If a party 
receives 47,600 (i.e., 23,800 x 2) votes, then it wins two 
seats; if a party wins 71,400 (i.e., 23,800 x 3) votes, then 
it wins three seats, etc., distributed in order of the 
candidates receiving most votes.  (Thus the system is "open 
list", rather than a "closed" system where the candidates are 
selected in fixed order pre-determined by the party.)  By 
mathematical necessity, once all the parties that earned 
multiples of 23,800 votes receive the seats to which they are 
entitled, a few seats will be left over.  At this point, the 
votes that were "lost" earlier in the process are reviewed, 
and the final few seats are distributed to the parties 
receiving the most "lost" votes, even though the total is 
less than 23,800 per seat (meaning that microparties can win 
seats at this stage).  One oft-criticized by-product of this 
system is that popular candidates can win so many votes that 
they will be able to "pull in" more candidates from their own 
party.  For example, if a candidate personally wins 71,400 
votes, her party wins three seats even if the rest of its 
candidates receive no votes at all. 
¶13.  Nationwide, Brazil uses uniform state-of-the art 
domestically produced electronic voting urns that, since 
their introduction in 1996, have suffered no verified cases 
of fraud.  The urns are simple (resembling a cash register) 
and durable (some will arrive at Amazonian polling stations 
by canoe).  When the polls close at 5:00pm on election day, 
each of the 355,000 machines will print out its results on 
paper slips (for local party officials to inspect) and on a 
floppy disc, which the local electoral judge will immediately 
use to transmit the results to the Regional and Supreme 
Electoral Tribunals by secure intranet link.  Results, urn by 
urn and municipality by municipality, are later made 
available on the internet for inspection and challenge. 
Within hours, the parties and media will have done the 
complicated calculations and fairly comprehensive preliminary 
results will be publicly available. 
 
¶14.  Part II of this series will examine the various mayoral 
races in play around Brazil. 
HRINAK