Around R$5 billion in public resources will be allocated to financing the 2026 electoral campaigns, through the Special Campaign Financing Fund (FEFC). This reveals, once again, the profound distance between the priorities established by public authorities and the real needs of the Brazilian population.
Although the Electoral Fund is already consolidated as a permanent instrument of the Brazilian political system, its existence continues to raise serious objections from the perspective of the legitimacy and rationality of public spending. In a country marked by countless deficiencies in essential areas and with an increasingly “tight” “cash” in relation to the necessary public investments that are increasing, it is difficult to justify that resources from taxpayers are allocated to financing electoral campaigns. After all, it seems incompatible with the principles of fiscal responsibility and respect for citizens to require society to bear the costs of political promotion of those who seek to win their vote.
The justification presented for the creation of the Electoral Fund was the need to fill the vacuum left by the ban on corporate donations to campaigns. However, the solution adopted ended up transferring to society a responsibility that should fall on the political actors themselves. Instead of encouraging leaner, more efficient campaign models compatible with the country’s fiscal reality, a system was opted for that ensures parties have access to voluminous public resources. In practice, what happened was the socialization of the costs of political-electoral activity, allowing political leaders to finance their campaigns with resources collected from taxpayers, without facing the necessary incentives to reduce expenses or seek more sustainable forms of political mobilization.
The problem gets worse when we look at the size of the values involved. Almost R$5 billion will be spent in around 2 months of political activity. And the control of these expenses, in the hands of a few party leaders who distribute these resources according to party convenience, and must follow few established rules.
The model of public financing of electoral campaigns also contains an evident contradiction from a democratic perspective. In a healthy democracy, political parties that effectively believe in their proposals and projects should be able to mobilize spontaneous support from their members, supporters and voters. By transferring the burden of funding campaigns through tax collection to society as a whole, the State eliminates citizens’ freedom to choose whether or not they wish to contribute to a given political group. The result is a system in which millions of Brazilians are compelled to finance candidates and parties whose ideas, values and programs they often reject, a situation that weakens the legitimacy of this financing model and deepens the gap between the political segment and society.
Another aspect is the concentrating effect produced by the Electoral Fund on the party system. Far from promoting greater political plurality, the distribution of public resources tends to favor already consolidated parties, which receive the most significant portions of the available amount. As a consequence, already established power structures are perpetuated, making it difficult for new leaders to emerge and reducing the possibilities for political renewal. Instead of stimulating democratic competition, the model ends up creating a type of market reserve supported by taxpayer money, strengthening organizations that already enjoy broad access to state institutions and resources.
There is no doubt that democracy constitutes an essential value and that elections represent one of its most important pillars. However, the defense of democracy cannot be confused with the defense of state financing of electoral campaigns. Solid democratic institutions depend on citizen participation, transparency, fiscal responsibility and public trust, and not on the allocation of billions of reais from public coffers for electoral activities. Financing political activity is also a means of popular participation and fosters proximity between voters and elected officials.
