The year 1985 was a milestone for Brazilian redemocratization. In January of that year, the first civilian president after more than 20 years of military dictatorship ,. Still an indirect election, restricted to the members of the Electoral College – composed by the members of the National Congress and delegates of the State Legislative Assemblies.
So or more important that the election of Tancredo Neves was the approval of, promulgated on May 15, 1985.
Approved by a large majority in the House and Senate, the amendment altered the 1967 Constitution and included direct elections for president at the end of the current presidential term, as well as direct elections in November 1986, to capital mayors and other cities that had previously been limited with their autonomy.
EC 25 also guaranteed the free organization of political parties, expressly including the right to organization for subtitles that had had their rejected, revoked or canceled records.
Finally, the amendment, thus overthrowing the last major restriction on universal suffrage in Brazil. According to data from the 1980 census, the Brazilian population five years or older was 102,421,730 people, of which 25.5% were illiterate. Among adults 20 years or older, illiterate totaled 17.3 million.
Data from indicate that, in the 1982 election, there were 58,616,588 registered voters. The optional inclusion of illiterates in the contingent of voters represented a potential increase of about 30% of new voters.
If we revisit the democratic theory consolidated in the 20th century – hereby Robert Dahl and its classic book “Polychia: Participation and Opposition” (1972) – two fundamental aspects must be considered in the characterization of a democratic regime: competition and inclusion.
Dahl, by deepening the minimum definition of democracy as a competitive method of choosing leaders, proposed by Joseph Schumpeter, highlights two essential dimensions: the contestation, which concerns the real possibility of alternating power and freedom for opposition; and inclusion, which refers to the breadth of the right of political participation, to vote and be voted.
From this perspective, Constitutional Amendment No. 25, which turned 40 in the last week, should be celebrated as one of the main milestones of Brazilian redemocratization. It represented a simultaneous advance on these two fronts: by allowing the reorganization of previously revoked parties, it expanded the field of contestation; By guaranteeing the vote to the illiterate, it overthrew a historic barrier to inclusion. By removing obstacles to both competition and participation, the amendment gave substance to the Brazilian democratic transition.
The expansion of the electorate and the release of the party organization allowed a more different composition of Congress, incorporating hitherto marginalized political voices. This opening had direct reflexes in the debates and the final text of the 1988 Constitution, which enshrined an expanded model of citizenship and ensured greater political, civil and social rights.
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