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

[Rodrigo Pereira]

Hi,

2010/10/21 Philip Hunt <cabalamat at googlemail.com>

> 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?
>

In Brazil, Chamber of Deputies, Federal Senate and Executive body
(President) can propose bills or reform in laws. But Executive can sign
"provisional measures" -- bills approved imediately with 30 days to be voted
on Chamber of Deputies and Senate. If the "provisional measure" is not
approved in 30 days, from it was signed, the provisional measure (now a
"pending" law) is rejected. In thesis, this is for emergency actions, but in
pratice, when president have low power in legislative, they use more
"provisional measures". The law-making process is through this 3 bodies. A
bill must be approved by Senate, by Chamber of Deputies, and finaly, signed
by President of Republic.


> - 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?
>
>
This is an interesting question because Federal's Deputies is elected by
proportional elections, for example: The most populated state elect more
deputies, the less populated state, elected less deputies - This is
proportional by voters in a state. Senate elections is not proportional and
are only 3 senators per state. I don't know, I think is balanced the power
between this two legislative bodies.


> > 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.
>

This happen ONLY if the Candidate most voted for President, in first round,
do not reach 50% + 1 vote. If This candidate reach this vote count, the
second round do not happen, and the candidate wins in first round.


>
> 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?
>
>
Thank you. I will think seriously about this.


Rodrigo.
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