The closed-lists system, included in different versions of the not-yet voted political reform, can be initially tested at the choice of the Brazilian members of the Mercosul Parliament (Parlasul).

That mechanism is provided for in a draft bill elaborated by Senator Eduardo Azeredo (PSDB-MG), and which will serve as a framework for the debate on that subject, according to a proposal presented on Monday (18) to the Brazilian Representation of Parlasul by the Brazilian vice-president of that parliament, Deputy Dr. Rosinha (PT-PR).

According to that draft bill, the candidates to Mercosul Parliament will be chosen by each party in a national convention, and registered in pre-ordained closed lists, which means that the electors will vote in the parties. The amount of congresspeople to be elected by party depends on the amount of votes obtained by those parties in the election.

Explanatory campaign
For Senator Azeredo, “the parties’ list is the most used system in the entire world, and, by adopting it, we would have the advantage of promoting an experience regarding its adoption in domestic elections”.

That senator thinks, though, that the implementation of a explanatory campaign on the Mercosul Parliament is necessary, since the new regional institution is unknown to large part of the population.

According to the senator’s opinion, many experienced politicians can be interested in participating in the first elections to Parlasul, which should happen in 2010, together with the elections for President of the Republic, Senators, Governors and Federal Deputies.

Thirty seven seats will be disputed, according to a political agreement closed during the last session of parliament. During the following elections, in 2014, 75 Brazilian congresspeople should be chosen.

There are two alternatives to the closed-list system. The first one would be reserving at least one seat for each unity of the Federation, while the remaining ones could be filled by parties’ lists. The other would be the adoption of electoral districts for each Brazilian region.

Terms
In order for the elections of congresspeople of Mercosul to happen in 2010, it will be necessary to approve a law regulating them by the end of September 2009.

That is, the rules should be established in the form of a law at least one year in advance. Therefore, Dr. Rosinha proposed that that subject be debated already in the next meeting of that representation in Brasília.

“That is an urgent debate. If the entire representation gets to an agreement, we can propose the draft bill to the political parties”, said Rosinha during a meeting held in Montevideo, before the opening of the XVIII session of Mercosul Parliament.

Electoral ratio
It will be necessary to establish an electoral ratio, by dividing the amount of computed valid votes by the amount of seats to be filled, to determine how many seats each party will be entitled to.

The parties’ ratio will be obtained by dividing the electoral ratio by the amount of valid votes obtained by the parties or colligations of parties. The amount of elected candidates will be defined by the parties’ ratio.

Women
The text establishes also that the parties take into account, at the moment of the elaboration of the list, the proportionality among the various regions, and the “intercalation of genders in the list”, with the guarantee of positions for women – in this case, at least 30% of the seats, according to what Brazilian legislation establishes for domestic elections.

From the newsroom/RX
With information from Agência Senado
Translation - Positive Idiomas Ltda