Political parties may be using loopholes in legislation to pay candidates less and later, according to research published in the Brazilian Journal of Political Science.
The study also identified more transfers of funds from blacks to whites and from women to men than vice versa. The topic was debated on Thursday (23) by the (Superior Electoral Court), which decided that due to diversion of racial quota resources, depending on the amount transferred.
The conclusions come from a group of four researchers who analyzed data on public electoral financing and accountability for disputes for state, district and federal deputies in 2018 and 2022.
The analysis considered eligible applications with income declared until March 2024, the date of the last collection of information from the survey. The complete universe of cases was used, which considers self-declared black and brown people as black.
The researchers evaluated issues such as type of resource and when they were delivered.
For the majority of positions and claims analyzed, black people were those who, instead of money transfers, received the most in the form of “estimable resources”, such as saintinhos. In practice, this limits candidates’ independence on the best way to manage the campaign.
The exception was for the position of federal deputy in 2018, when white women led in this type of appeal, followed by black people.
According to Hannah Maruci, post-doctoral fellow at Cebrap (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning) and one of the study’s authors, the data confirm frequent reports of women and black people who say they receive “ready-made saints”, without autonomy over the campaign budget.
This was the experience of Maria Aparecida Pinto, known as Cidinha Raiz, in São Paulo. She claims that she was unable to manage the campaign money and that the funds, managed by someone else, were used to make “little saints for everyone”.
“This practice is not isolated. There are comments from candidates that they received the money, but someone from the party asked to pay for things from outside”, says Cidinha. “Some only receive cards, others receive cards and insufficient money. How can she, with R$5,000, have a team to work on the campaign?”
The study also highlights a difference in the speed of delivery of contributions. White men received more resources in the first two weeks of the campaign, an important period for good performance in the election, according to the researchers.
The trend occurred among those who ran for office in 2018. White men received 4.4 times more resources in the first week of the campaign than black women. In the second week, they received 5.6 times more than this segment.
In 2022, the difference was less pronounced, but the trend continued. That year, white men running for federal deputy were those who received the most resources in the first two weeks — 2.5 times more in the first week and 1.5 times more in the second week than black women.
The phenomenon is also noticeable in municipal elections, says Valéria Duarte, who was a candidate for councilor in 2024 in (SP).
The school director says her candidacy was marked by the realization that she and other women seemed to receive fewer resources and later in life than men. “This gets in the way, because we end up not hiring people to work, because we don’t know how much, when and if we’re going to get paid.”
The difference is also visible in the total amount paid per claim, with white men proportionally receiving more.
White men seeking reelection accounted for 5.1% of candidates for federal deputy in 2018, but received 32.4% of the funding. In 2022, this group was 3.3% of the total, but received 17.8% of the resources.
The researchers also observed the tendency to transfer resources between the candidates, with a movement that could signal a trick by the parties to redirect money to their favorites.
In 2022, candidates black people donated 34.6% of their resources to white candidates, and white people donated 29.5% to black people. In total, whites received 60% of the transfers made, while blacks received around 40% — in both cases, amounts coming from blacks and whites.
By gender, female candidates donated 38% to men, while men donated 15.6% to women. In total, women received around 24% of the transfers made, and men, 76%.
For Vanilda Souza Chaves, a doctoral student at USP in sociology and one of the study’s researchers, the data may indicate a strategy by the parties so that the money counted as intended for women and black people reaches men and white people.
She explains that parties have the autonomy to distribute resources internally, but they need to respect the affirmative actions stipulated by the Court.
Currently, there is a minimum quota of 30% of the public campaign fund for women and black people. It is also expected that the money will be delivered in the first weeks of the election. Parties, however, have .
For experts, the acronyms take advantage of the limits of electoral rules to try to circumvent them. “It is not only a matter of ensuring compliance with the percentages provided for by law, but also of understanding how the mechanisms of these standards can be improved, in order to eliminate loopholes that can be strategically exploited by the parties”, they say.
