Party Coalition - David Godoy

In the end of 2014, Brazil has passed through the closest presidential election since the establishment of its democracy. The country was literally divided into two major factions, the Worker’s Party (PT) and the Social Democratic Party (PSDB). The final results were 51% for Dilma (form the PT) and 48% for Aecio Neves. Prior to the election day, the election research did not showed a candidate that was more likely to win, making very hard to know what was going to be the final result. Even with the victory of the PT and the reelection of Dilma Rousseff, the PT party is far from having control of the country’s government. During this same election, senators and representatives from the Lower and Upper National House were also running for elections. The results proved to be very different from the presidential elections where 32 different party received seats and not one party is even close to achieving majority. Therefore, in order to effectively pass legislation, the PT needs to gain support and create party coalitions inside the upper and lower house.

Already at the start of her second mandate, president Dilma started facing a hostile Congress. With the election of a new president of the Chamber: Deputy Eduardo Cunha. Cunha is not a great ally of the President and the executive power making President Dilma start implementing new policies to start a dialog with the Congress. Without a coalition, the Chamber will be unable to implement new policies especially during this crucial time in Brazil where the population is demanding stricter anti-corruption policies.

Recently, we read the article by Jonathan Slapin that discussed about party coalitions (Institutions and coalition formation: The German election of 2005). In his article, Slapin focus on the German elections of 2005, where it was one of the most changing elections since the restoration of Germany. In this election, a new political party merged with significant votes, and no one had an absolute majority. Therefore, in order to form a government, the political parties had to organize and form coalitions. This was a difficult task sine there was several different possible coalitions that they could form. Some included the Jamaica coalition, the traffic light coalition, the coalition of the left, and the grand coalition. Slapin analyzes these coalitions and discusses its strengths and weakness. Some coalitions parties were not able to work with each other, some other the party’s ideology was too different. The coalition finally created were among the two biggest parties, the CDU and the SPD. With their coalition, they were able to acquire a majority both in the lower and upper house. Also this allowed the election of a new chancellor Angela Merkel.

Just like the situation in Germany, Brazil has to pass by similar negotiations and coalitions. The government system is completely different, Brazil being presidential and Germany parliamentary. However, both countries have to face with more than two political parties. Germany, might not has as much parties as Brazil, but having a PR electoral system, it allowed the formulation of parties and these parties have to work together in many ways in order to form a government. This is necessary because if they do not form a government, it will be impossible for the country to create and implement policies. In parliamentary systems, when this happens, the government is viewed as infected, a vote of no confidence is usually presented and elections are scheduled in order to change the situation. In Brazil, vote of no confidence does not exist, and the Congress has to deal with several parties that have a share of seats. Therefore, in order to be able to function effectively, the parties have to form informal coalitions and vote together in order to pass bills. The president tries to win the support of the major coalition in order to be able to introduce bills (something that the Brazilian president can do). However this is not easy to accomplish and the Brazilian Congress is viewed many times as ineffective. The great number of political parties represented in the Brazilian Congress also means that the range of ideology in the political spectrum (left-right) is very large. You can find parties from any point in the political spectrum which makes even harder for parties to cooperate, form coalitions and work together.