September 7, 2021
10:09
Cassandra Castro – from Cenarium
BRASILIA – With the country living a climate of polarization further intensified on the eve of the Independence holiday, agendas that were once seen as relevant fall into ostracism. This Monday, one of them, the Project of Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) that proposes the end of the privileged forum, completed a thousand days of waiting to be included in the voting agenda in the plenary of the House of Representatives. The Proposed Amendment to the Constitution has been ready for a vote since 2018.
Professor Valdir Pucci, PhD in Constitutional Law and Master in Political Science, says that the matter does not gain echo in the National Congress because it is not in the center of the interests of the presidents of both the House of Representatives and the Federal Senate, Arthur Lira (PP-AL) and Rodrigo Pacheco (DEM-MG), respectively.
“If we take the agenda in the House, the president is much more concerned about passing the reforms. In the Senate, the president’s perspective is to try to show himself as a third way for the 2022 elections”, says Pucci, who also says that the Bolsonaro government has, today, other agendas, other concerns, different from what it was in the 2018 campaign, where the issue of the Privileged Forum was a hot topic.
Out of focus
The lawyer specialized in Electoral Law Luciano Santos also says that the president of the House of Representatives makes emergency votes for “the agendas of politicians and parties and doesn’t prioritize projects of interest to society. Despite pressure from civil society organizations for the project to be unleashed, this decision is the prerogative of President Arthur Lira, who has no interest in the matter, reveals the director of the Movement Against Electoral Corruption (MCCE).
Both specialists are unanimous in emphasizing that, to change the situation of the shelved PEC, only strong pressure from the organized civil society can change the situation, so that the parliamentarians approve the project. But, according to Dr. Valdir Pucci, society is absorbed by the agendas “that come from inside the Presidential Administration, while it should be guiding the most important issues for the country.
The proposal intends to limit the Privileged Forum to only five authorities in Brazil: the president of the Republic, the vice-president, and the presidents of the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court.