The government of Brazil is preparing a proposal to modify the Constitution and prohibit active military from presenting themselves as candidates in the elections, confirmed this Wednesday the Defense Minister, Jose Mucio.
“What we wanted, and that the Armed Forces fully agree, is that whoever wants to be a soldier cannot run for political office and then return to command,” the minister explained to the media, according to the G1 news portal.
According to Múcio, there was a long dialogue for months with the military to carry out the proposal, and finally the government gave in on an important point: it will not prohibit the military from being ministers.
The veto would not affect the agents of the Military Police either, since they depend on the state governments, so the federal government has no power to prevent their participation in elections.
Reform of the Constitution
During the term of the president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-23) many soldiers made the leap into politics, and the politicization of the Armed Forces and the Military Police is one of the problems that the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is now facing.
To move forward with the ban, the Constitution needs to be amended, so the government will have to achieve a large majority in the National Congress.
The support of three fifths of parliamentarians and two favorable votes are required, both in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate.
In Deputies there is a working group formed to analyze these changes in electoral legislation, and it is expected to present and vote on the opinion next Wednesday.
The group was created last week and, for the changes to be valid for the 2024 municipal elections, the mini-reform must be sanctioned before October 5.
parliamentary work
At the public hearing this Wednesday, The rapporteur of the mini-reform, Deputy Rubens Pereira Júnior (PT), explained that the objective of the project is to make adjustments to the electoral legislation to improve the process.
“We do not want to make big changes, but rather small adjustments that bring great contributions. We already have text for almost all the proposals; our task will be to unify them,” he said in an interview with TV Cámara, collected by the state Agencia Brasil.
For Pereira, issues such as party federation, electoral propaganda, electoral accountability, ineligibility, campaign financing, and political violence against women must be addressed.
Source: Ambito
