[pp.int.general] Pirates on presidential political system, try to answer if you can!

[Philip Hunt]

On 22 October 2010 00:50, Rodrigo Pereira <rodrigo2kpereira at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But I will start a new treat to try find an answer to a sincere and
> constant question in my mind:
>
> If a pirate is elected to the parliament, the pirate could apply the
> strategy of "balance of power" to influence the formation government
> body (executive). But if doesn't have a parliament like in Brazil,

Brazil does have a parliament, but because the country has a
presidential system, I assume the parliament has less power. Since you
know more about Brazilian politics than I do, I'd like to ask you:

- how much power does parliament have to make laws, to prevent the
government from making laws, and to pass/reject the national budget?

- of this power, how much does the lower house (the Chamber of
Deputies) have, and how much does the upper house (the Federal Senate)
have?

> where the executive body is elected by people and is not indicated by
> parliament, what kind of strategy a pirate could apply to influence
> legislative process to make your issues reality???

Looking at the parliamentary election in 2006
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_general_elections,_2006), it
appears the Chamber of Deputies uses a PR system, and parties can get
elected on about 0.3% of the vote. However, it's not as simple as that
-- the Brazilian Republican Party got 1 seat with 244,059 votes
(0.26%), but the Christian Social Democratic Party got no seats with
354,217 votes (0.38%). (I assume from these figures that the electoral
system is regional party lists).

The president is elected using a two-round runoff system.

Also, the overall political climate in Brazil is quite favourable to
Pirates -- the country has opposed drug patents, and is also opposed
to the ACTA treaty (see
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101014/01402311422/more-countries-react-to-acta-brazil-says-acta-is-illegitimate.shtml).
This indicates that Pirate ideas already have currency in Brazil.

So, my recommendation for how PPBr could proceed are:

(1) as soon as possible, get registered as a political party and be
able to contest elections (what are the criteria for this?)

(2) in parliamentary and local elections, Pirates should stand for
election and when elected argue for Pirate policies. Given that other
parties in Brazil already agree with some Pirate policies, it should
not be too difficult to persuade them of others.

(3) in the presidential election, Pirates should contest the first
round and in the second round ask their supporters to vote for the
candidate who most supports Pirate policies.

Is this useful?

-- 
Philip Hunt, <cabalamat at gmail.com>