The new presidents of the Chamber and, whose favorites are, respectively, (-PB) and (-AP), should take over after February 1 in a scenario marked by the lack of transparency and the need for mechanisms to make more democratic to acting within the houses.
According to experts heard by Sheetthe context of the last years in the federal legislature has been marked by the increased power of Congress, turbocharged by parliamentary amendments, and obstacles in social participation.
The House and Senate make up the Legislative Power at the federal level, one of the three pillars, with the Executive and Judiciary, in which Brazilian democracy is based. They have legislative attributions, such as the elaboration of constitutional amendments, and inspection.
Despite the central role in the democratic game, the dispute marked by political arrangements and the lack of contact with the citizen when choosing the presidencies, which are pranks of houses, reflect the distancing and lack of transparency with which important themes in Congress They are treated, experts point out.
Between the two institutions, the scenario that requires greater attention, according to researchers, is the da, which has been living a concentration of power since the management of, then PMDB deputy for Rio de Janeiro, in the 2015-2016 biennium.
After that, the concentration of power in the hands of the president had its peak in the management of (-al), says Guilherme France, manager of the Center for Anti-Corruption Knowledge of International Transparency Brazil.
Lira’s presidency was marked by the sugar approval of the urgency of bills such as criminalizing abortion-with 23 seconds approval-increased control over the Union budget through amendments and a style.
France points out a series of movements over the last few years that have led to what is today the highlight of the concentration of power in the position of the mayor, which, he says, needs to be remedied by an internal regulation committed to the transparency of the house.
One of these movements is the excessive use of extraordinary sessions, allowing the president to schedule deliberations of interest less rigidly and less favorable to the obstruction of parliamentarians.
“In these sessions, there is no expected time for speeches and the orders of the day and times can be defined by the president virtually without restrictions,” says democracy pact document that asks, among other points, to limit the use of extraordinary sessions.
According to the organization, from 2006 the number of extraordinary sessions exceeded half of the total sessions and, a decade later, this value reached the percentage of 86%. According to data from the House of Representatives, 2024 had 86 extraordinary deliberative sessions, 3 extraordinary sessions of general commission and no ordinary session.
Another aspect that contributed to the concentration of power in the hands of the president of the House was the informal use of the College of Leaders, an instance that advises the president to define priority proposals.
According to the Democracy Pact, the operation of the college has taken place in a “zone between formality and informality”, with meetings outside the physical facilities of the House and in a dynamic that favors the power of the presidency, without mechanisms of transparency and Accountability. Therefore, the organization suggests the institutionalization of the college, so that its agenda can be publicly accompanied by society.
It also asks for the establishment of more objective criteria for the creation of special commissions, a mechanism that has been used both to put propositions in the “Legislative Limbo” and to “circumvent the action of permanent committees”, depending on the president’s interests.
Like the House, the Senate needs to increase transparency by encouraging management plans to presidential candidates and bringing rules more favorable to civil society access, says Guilherme France.
“These bodies assumed a level of protagonism not only in the political process, but in the very definition of the public budget. Therefore, the people who want to assume their presidencies should be accountable to Brazilian citizens from an open political process in which they present themselves Guidelines and management proposals, “he says.
In the Senate, the next president will deal with the legacy of Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), who crossed clashes with the Supreme Court (STF) and was in the wake of Lira’s actions, regarded as one of the presidents.
Marcus Ianoni, Professor of Political Science at UFF (Fluminense Federal University), states that the Internal Regulations of both houses must “seek the best equation between work efficiency and effective guarantee of transparency, debate and the right to manifest themselves within the rules of the game “.
He cites other aspects that have impaired the full democratic exercise in institutions, such as the strong influence that campaign spending has on the definition of elected parliamentarians. The lack of information about the interests that move the decisions in Congress, he says, is another problem.
According to a survey of international transparency, in 2024 there was only two representatives of civil society with access to the house, against 65 representatives of associations or private entities.
Filipe Savelli Pereira, researcher at the History of History of Political and Institutional Interactions of UFES (Federal University of Espírito Santo), points out that there is, in addition to the cited aspects, lack of adequate access to transparency mechanisms already available. For him, these mechanisms are not sufficiently accessible to a population that lacks “pedagogical actions to be included in the legislature.”
