Grumpy on the stump

Oct 3rd 2010, 14:36 by H.J. | BRASÍLIA

I’M TRYING to get my head around the sheer scale of these elections. It’s not just
the size of the electorate (135m people) or the territory (8.5m square kilometres,
divided into 5,365 municipalities). It’s the number and variety of candidates and
posts to be filled. The race to succeed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president is the
most visible and important one. But Brazilians are also choosing governors,
senators and both federal and state legislators. In all, 364,094 candidates from 27
political parties are running for office.

Brazilians themselves can find the whole thing bewildering. To help voters navigate
the system—in particular the 10% of the electorate that is illiterate—all candidates
are identified by name, photograph and a number, whose first two digits indicate
the party. Under Brazil’s electoral law all candidates are entitled to some free
television and radio advertising, with the amount determined according to their
party’s size. Those from the nanicos, or micro-parties, get just a few seconds, long
enough only to bellow their names and numbers at top speed.

In this information overload, memorable candidates have a big advantage. Ex-

footballers do well: Romário, the hero of the 1994 World Cup, is running for the
national Congress for the state of Rio de Janeiro and should be elected easily. In
São Paulo Suellem Rocha, a curvy, corseted 23-year-old would-be-deputy known as
the “pear-shaped woman”, is getting a lot of attention. Also in São Paulo Tiririca
(Grumpy), a singer and clown who had a novelty hit single some years ago, is
polling around a million votes. His slogan: “What does a federal deputy do? To tell
the truth, I don’t know. But vote for me and I’ll tell you.”

Not only is Tiririca likely to get the highest number of votes of any member of
Congress, but under Brazil’s strange electoral rules he will pull four or five non-
entities into Congress with him. Although votes are cast for individuals, candidates
for Congress who are elected with votes to spare pass their excess on to other
candidates from the same party, or even to politicians from other parties in the
same coalition. Such candidates may only receive a few dozen votes, but still
displace rivals who got hundreds of times as many. It is a corrupt and corrupting
system: parties find eye-catchers so that placemen can ride to power on their coat-
tails.

As a foreigner, I’m not eligible to vote. It’s a shame, because I’d really like to try
out one of the 462,000 light, sturdy, cash-register-sized voting machines that
together constitute the world’s most advanced electronic voting system. They were
introduced not only to make it easier to vote in this complex, multi-layered
democracy, but to cut corruption by ending the possibility of ballot-box stuffing.
The use of biometrics to identify voters, being tested this year, should cut out
impersonation too. Sadly, they can’t deal with other common sorts of corruption:
people can still sell their votes, and even a candidate elected with the most modern
technology may go on to be a thief in office.

The machines would be impressive anywhere; in this vast, chaotic country they are
astonishing. Because of them all results should be known within 24 hours of the
polls closing. In a way it’s depressing: this wonderful technology and a million
people are going to use it to vote for Tiririca.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2010/10/brazils_presidential_electi
on_0