On Tuesday night (19), A approved a bill that renegotiates party debts for up to 15 years, creates a ceiling for fines in case of disapproval of party accounts and opens a loophole for the mass shooting of messages, including the use of robots.
The proposal, inserted by surprise into the plenary agenda, also allows party foundations to function as colleges, prohibits the seizure and blocking of assets from electoral party funds (even in cases of criminal conviction) and prevents the suspension of resources from the party fund during the electoral semester.
The project also establishes that a party that results from the merger of others is exempt from the application of the sanctions of suspension or blocking of transfers of resources from party funds provided against the former acronyms.
The text was approved in a symbolic vote, that is, without parliamentarians having to register a nominal vote, which was criticized by deputies opposed to the proposal. Furthermore, the session took place in a hybrid format, with remote participation, and with low attendance in the plenary — not even President Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB) was at the table.
The approval of the urgency, which took place earlier this Tuesday, had 284 votes in favor and 127 against. União Brasil, PSD, PP, PT, PC do B, P, V and PSB supported the text. PL, PSOL-Rede, Novo and Missão were against it.
The text will still be analyzed by the Senate.
The proposal advances on the eve of the 2026 general elections and foresees that all of this will be applied immediately.
The text had been sitting in the Chamber since 2025, but returned to analysis this Tuesday, when deputy Rodrigo Gambale (Podemos-SP) published a new report with several changes.
“Once again, on the eve of the elections, without discussion with society and in a rush, the Chamber of Deputies tries to approve a mini-electoral reform that weakens inspection mechanisms and promotes impunity for political parties that fail to comply with the law”, says Guilherme France, from Transparency International.
He says it is “particularly concerning that this proposal appears to have support across the political spectrum, with few exceptions.”
In the text presented this Tuesday, it is foreseen, for example, that a party created from the merger of two others will still be responsible for the debts of previous entities, but “will not be subject to the sanctions of suspension or blocking of transfers of party fund resources applied by analysis of financial statements from previous years”.
In other words, despite still needing to pay for the debts of the associations that merged, the new party receives a reprieve from punishments and can once again receive public resources.
The device could benefit Podemos, the rapporteur’s party, which incorporated the PSC. The authorship of the project came from União Brasil, an acronym that was born from the union between PSL and DEM.
The text stipulates that resources from party and electoral funds cannot be seized, even in the case of conviction of a “civil, labor, criminal, tax or any other nature”. It also says that the judge who carries out such an act is guilty of a “crime of abuse of authority”.
Currently, the law provides that, in case of disapproval of accounts, the party must return the irregular amount and pay a fine of 20% of the amount.
The project on the Chamber’s agenda establishes a ceiling for this punishment, at R$30,000 — which is equivalent to the punishment for irregular use of R$150,000.
Therefore, any problem above this amount, in practice, would only lead to the refund of the amount, but would not count towards the fine.
The text also allows debts already in execution to be paid in installments for up to 15 years.
At another point, the project provides for the use of an official cell phone number “exclusively for party and electoral communication purposes.”
The device says that messages sent from this phone, as long as they are intended for people who have already registered, “do not constitute mass shooting even if carried out through automated systems or bots.”
The project only provides for the possibility for the recipient to unsubscribe from receipt, but does not provide for mechanisms for only voluntary registrations to be carried out, which opens the door for the spread of mass shootings.
The text says that under “no circumstances” a party will be prevented from receiving resources from the party fund in the “electoral semester”.
If the party makes an irregular transfer to any of its bodies or directories, the project allows this amount not to be returned, as long as the correct use of it for electoral purposes is subsequently proven.
The proposal also creates a new provision that provides that payments to party leaders will not require “additional proof” that the person actually carried out their tasks, but only their recording in the minutes.
In practice, the assessment of technicians interviewed under reserve is that this creates a loophole for ghost managers, whose names appear on documents, but who in practice have no relationship with the acronym.
Representative Kim Kataguiri (Missão-SP) was one of the critics of the project. “I’ve never seen someone sentenced to pay a fine and decide the number of installments, if only the courts had this understanding with each taxpayer, with each debtor,” he said.
“This is an affront to morality, this is an affront to any fiscal responsibility regime, this is an affront to all good principles of public administration”, said deputy Adriana Ventura (Novo-SP).
