Early elections for presidencies and other positions on the boards of directors of Legislative Assemblies are the subject of recent questions from the (Attorney General’s Office) and decisions from the (Supreme Federal Court).
At least 11 states had votes for the command of the Legislature challenged in court: Amazonas, Maranhão, Piauí, Roraima, Mato Grosso, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Tocantins, Amapá, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe.
Most of the challenges were made by the PGR, which filed eight actions since October. Some were also filed by parties.
The states have the rule of dividing their legislatures into two biennia, that is, each term for board positions lasts two years — the exception is Rio Grande do Sul, which has a president each year. The challenges in the STF refer to votes for the second biennium, which begins in February 2025.
Since 2022, the court’s jurisprudence allows reelection to the positions of the Assemblies’ board of directors, even if it occurs within the same legislature. One of the reasons for the current debate is that the Constitution does not provide dates for votes in the Houses.
There are cases in which the Assemblies held votes for both biennia on the same day, such as in Piauí, Paraíba and Tocantins. In others, anticipation allowed the election for 2025/26 last year.
The Attorney General’s Office contested the elections for the second biennium in eight states. Of these, seven actions are authored by management, while one, that of Maranhão, is from the period of its predecessor at PGR,.
Gonet argues that early elections compromise the alternation of power and the frequency of elections, in addition to violating criteria of contemporaneity and reasonableness.
One of these cases happened in Amazonas, where, in April 2023, state deputy Roberto Cidade (União Brasil) was re-elected to command the Assembly for the 2025-2027 term. The Novo party filed a lawsuit with the STF against re-election.
“The Federal Supreme Court allows early elections for the board of directors for the second biennium of the legislature, but as long as the criteria of contemporaneity and reasonableness are met”, wrote the minister when determining that a new vote be held.
The new election took place on October 30th, and Roberto Cidade was re-elected in less than two minutes. With this, he goes to his third consecutive term as president of the Assembly.
Despite not allowing three consecutive terms, the STF understood in a 2022 judgment that the new rule would not generate ineligibility for those elected in elections prior to January 7, 2021, which includes the first vote that elected Roberto Cidade in 2020.
In Rio Grande do Norte, Ezequiel Bezerra (PSDB) was elected president for two biennia, until the beginning of 2027, in a vote held on the same day, in February 2023. He has commanded the Assembly since 2015. The rapporteur of the action on the case in the STF, minister, has not yet decided on the PGR’s questioning.
In April, the Supreme Court elected governor Wanderlei Barbosa’s son, state deputy Léo Barbosa, to the presidency of the Assembly for the 2025/2026 biennium.
In Sergipe, deputies held a new vote, which maintained the re-election of Jeferson Andrade (PSD) to the presidency of the Assembly, four days after the minister’s decision that annulled the vote that took place in June last year.
The Pernambuco Assembly will also make a new choice after determination by the minister, which will be in November 2023, more than a year before the second biennium.
“The suppression of the time interval (…) eliminates the opportunity to evaluate the performance of current office holders and prevents the electoral process from reflecting possible changes in the political will of parliamentarians or in the composition of political forces within the Legislative House”, he stated the minister. He determined that the vote will take place from December.
Some states anticipated the outcome of actions in the STF. The Maranhão Assembly, which had already carried out the vote that re-elected President Iracema Vale (PSB) in June 2023, decided to change the internal regulations so that the choice can be made from November.
In Piauí, deputies approved, in October, an amendment to the state Constitution that provides for voting for the second biennium from October of the second year of office, but the Assembly says that the new rule will not affect the one that was already made on the 1st of February 2023 and elected deputy Severo Eulálio (MDB) to the presidency for the 2025/26 biennium.
The House Attorney’s Office asked Minister Kassio Nunes Marques to extinguish a PSDB action contesting the vote.
Marcelo Labanca, professor of constitutional law at the Catholic University of Pernambuco, classifies the STF’s actions as interference by the Judiciary in the Legislature.
“It is a centralized reading of Brazilian federalism. There is no rule in the Constitution that says that the mandate of a board of directors must be two years in the Legislative Assemblies nor the dates of votes. The definition of the election date has always been something internal to the Legislature .”
Jean Menezes de Aguiar, lawyer and MBA professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas, agrees with the understanding of STF ministers who ordered new votes. “This aims to ensure that parliamentarians themselves monitor the management of these Houses. And it increases political pluralism.”
For Aguiar, one of the points that can be adjusted is the definition of the interval between dates, as there were cases in which different ministers allowed votes from October onwards, and others, only from December of the second year of the legislature.
