Parties on the right and left have been debating unions through merger, incorporation or federation since last year, despite the weak electoral results of the latter model, in force since 2021.
The negotiations aim to expand political influence in the Legislative and Executive branches and also serve smaller parties as an escape from the risk of extinction.
There are currently approved in 2022 and valid until at least the first half of 2026: 1) , PC do B e , 2) and Citizenship and 3) and Network.
There are talks both about changing the composition of these federations next year and about creating others. At the same time, parties discuss merger and incorporation.
The PSDB, which has suffered constant dehydration with the latest electoral results, is the protagonist in several of these conversations.
The federation with Cidadania was of little use, having had the worst electoral results among the three formed.
With this, the party is discussing changing the current federation, having already held several conversations with Solidariedade, run by federal deputy Paulinho da Força (SP), and with Podemos.
More recently, members of the party have been negotiating for it to merge or be incorporated into or, , with , an acronym from which it broke away in the 1980s to pursue a solo path.
“We are demonstrating to them that there is interest from the MDB as a whole in this reunification with the PSDB. It is not an isolated thing. We have the same DNA”, said the national president of the MDB, Baleia Rossi.
The federal deputy (PSDB-MG) said that in February there will be an intensification of these negotiations.
“The PSDB will build an alliance at the center with forces that are willing to do so and, therefore, we have expanded our conversations”, he stated.
Although he does not name names, the dissatisfaction is directed at Kassab, who denies that he is acting in this way.
In addition to the conversations between the MDB and the PSDB, Baleia Rossi’s party is also evaluating a federation with the PSD to face a possible union of parties in the center.
This other super federation would unite those of (AL) and (PI) with those of (AP) and (PB) — the latter two being the respective favorites to command the Chamber from February onwards.
If formed, this federation would aim to join forces to have more influence in Congress and the states, in addition to expanding bargaining power with the federal government.
Today, the three parties sponsor five government ministers.
If formed, the PP-União-Republicanos federation will have 153 of the 513 seats in the Chamber and 17 of the 81 in the Senate.
a measure taken at the time in response to the ban on coalitions and (or performance), which aims to remove subtitles with low electoral performance from circulation.
When federating, the parties are obliged to act together in the Legislature and in the Legislature for at least four years.
In theory, this increases the chance of election for vacancies in Congress, Legislative Assemblies and Municipal Chambers, since the current electoral system takes as a basis for the distribution of vacancies the sum of all votes given to party or federation candidates.
This also increases the chances of small parties escaping the barrier clause, which cuts funding and advertising for acronyms that do not achieve a minimum electoral performance, on a scale that started with 1.5% of national votes for federal deputy in 2018 and which it will reach 3% in 2030.
Like other electoral and party rules, federations are part of a highly volatile system, subject to successive changes over the years. As such, they may also undergo changes until the next dispute, in 2026.
There are currently 29 active political parties, which forced parties to merge or form federations.
The three unions created served, in practice, to maintain PC do B, PV, Cidadania and Rede with access to propaganda and funds of more than R$1 billion from the party fund, since, if these parties were alone in the dispute, they would not comply with the barrier clause.
Since 2018, the clause has led to the extinction, whether by merger or incorporation, of PPL, PRP, PHS, Pros, PSC, Patriota and PTB.
The performance of the federations at the polls, however, was negative or weak for the majority of the parties that make them up, with the exception of a slight improvement by the PT.
President Lula’s party rose from 54 federal deputies elected in 2018 to 68 in 2022, in addition to a modest recovery in the number of mayors elected last October (252 compared to 183 four years earlier).
PC do B and PV, however, maintained the very low performance of those elected to Congress and also saw their already reduced number of mayors elected in 2020 shrink even further in 2024.
In the PSOL-Rede federation, the results are similar — either stagnation at a very low level or decline.
The union between PSDB and Citizenship presented the worst results. In addition to the poor results of the toucans, Cidadania shrank from 8 to 5 federal deputies and from 139 to 33 elected mayors.
Behind the scenes, leaders of the smaller acronyms, especially PV and Cidadania, complain about the partners, saying they do not have the right space either in the management of the federations or in the assembly of electoral slates.
In October’s municipal elections, for example, in a scenario of federation “only on paper” and a prevalence of larger parties that lead the union.
In addition to the discussion about changes or the formation of new federations, there are those in the Chamber who advocate changing the federation rules and the barrier clause for 2026.
