By LUIS FELIPE MIGUEL*
What's the point of electing a woman, a black person, an LGBT person, just because they are, if there is no clear commitment to emancipated demands and the competence to defend them?
Research shows that a large portion of voters have not yet fully decided on their candidates for mayor, and even less so on their council members. For mayor, it is easier because the choice is almost always made by elimination. When there are many candidates, as in proportional elections, it is more difficult.
In fact, proportional representation with open lists, as is the case in Brazil, has many advantages, particularly in terms of increasing the power of the electorate. However, on the other hand, it places each voter before a huge number of options, about which there is very little information, and therefore lacks clarity in decision-making.
The situation is even worse because the parties say relatively little about the candidates. Yes, it is true that it is possible to eliminate outright all those who are linked to far-right parties, such as Novo or the Liberal Party (PL).
At least in larger municipalities, those who run for Centrão parties can also be ruled out. They are either weak-willed or opportunists.
Still, there are plenty of people left. And unfortunately, even in the left-wing parties there is no shortage of sycophants and opportunists, not to mention people with whom we may agree on some parts of the political agenda, but not on others.
O jornal Folha de S. Paul has launched a tool that supposedly helps solve this issue. It is the “match "electoral", in which you would check the percentage of agreement between you and the different candidates in relation to a series of themes. But you have to start by accepting that the list of issues presented by the newspaper encompasses the most relevant ones and that the formulation is good enough for an "agree or disagree" answer to capture all the nuances involved.
I, a resident of Brasília, who will not vote this year, tested the tool out of curiosity and found it to be very unproductive.
Aside from the party, the other shortcut that voters usually use is voting by exclusive issue. That is, I have an issue that I decide to prioritize and I will choose who also prioritizes it. It could be, I don't know, the right to abortion in the public health system or care for children with disabilities or zero fares on public transportation or any other issue.
The problem is that, in the times we live in, this strategy can prove risky. We have an aggressive far right and, often, small progressive benches in city councils to combat setbacks. It may not be a good idea to prioritize a single issue, no matter how important it is, and leave others uncovered.
This difficulty in choosing is not trivial. It is one of the consequences of the way in which political representation occurs in electoral democracies. It is what I call “multifunctional representation”, that is, we have a single vote to elect representatives who will decide on our behalf on all matters. It is very unlikely that this will be fully satisfactory.
I can choose a candidate because I agree with his ideas regarding education, but not security. And my vote does not discriminate between what I agree with and what I don't.
Furthermore, the growing awareness of the exclusion of various groups from positions of power has increased the relevance of demands for representation. But what is the point of electing a woman, a black person, or an LGBT person, just because they are, if there is no clear commitment to emancipated demands and the competence to defend them?
The identity criterion does not resolve the issue, but rather adds another layer of complexity. The pausterization promoted by electoral marketing does not help either.
For my part, I always defend that the vote should be granted to those who show more commitment, determination and capacity in defending those rights for which we have to fight alone, since they do not have the sympathy of the “authentic” liberals, the “advanced” media or the “civilized” center: the rights of the working class.
* Luis Felipe Miguel He is a professor at the Institute of Political Science at UnB. Author, among other books, of Democracy in the capitalist periphery: impasses in Brazil (authentic). [https://amzn.to/45NRwS2].
Originally posted on the author's social media.
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