Leonardo Bellini de Castro. PHOTO: PERSONAL FILE

As usual, another dart hit the credibility of the political class as Brazilians have been stormed, metaphorically and literally, with news of a significant increase in their political campaign fund from a modest figure in 2022. from R $ 2 billion to a stratospheric value of R $ 5.7 billion.

Expressing the amount of public resources involved would in itself be outrageous enough for a Brazilian taxpayer were it not for the aggravating factors of the recognized financial crisis that the state is experiencing, and the sanitary hecatomb that hit it. Brazil and the world, and that a titanic redistributive effort was required to prevent social collapse.

Strictly speaking, the indifference of the political class to public opinion indicates a persistent detachment from social expectations and political activity operating in Brasilia, as if they were parallel universes without the slightest connection or convergence. The rhetorical directives of representation and the notion that power comes from the people sound, therefore, like recordings of an almost constitutional cynicism.

This conclusion becomes obvious when analyzing the popular demands of recent years for more morality in the conduct of public affairs and effective bills passed and approved by Congress instead, and you can list the complete misconfiguration of the bill on combating crime, the approval of the new law on illegality by the Chamber of Deputies, which opens countless channels for widespread impunity, the adoption of a law on abuse of power, clearly aimed at limiting the activities of supervisory bodies, as well as projects aimed at ensuring political control over the supervisory bodies of the prosecutor’s office and the judiciary, which undermines the independence of such structures.

National Congress. PHOTO: DIDA SAMPAIO / ESTADÃO

On the other hand, if campaign finance has long exposed the chaotic connections between the public and private sectors, now we are faced with a clean and simple elimination of intermediaries in the process of consolidating political katsikism in power projects that are immortalized. Hence, naturally, comes the practical impossibility of political alternation and the necessary democratic saturation with oxygen, which makes it even more difficult to eradicate the innumerable vices that are so deeply rooted among us.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the approval of a new electoral fund, together with the overthrow of the presidential veto, once again united the representatives of the multi-colored supporters, which means that physiology is a motto that can generate sympathies that do not find ideological differences. when it comes to consolidating political power with minimal control.

The point is that, while the approval took place within the institutional framework, giving the result formal legitimacy, such episodes, like many others, undermine the credibility of democracy in front of public opinion, which includes some of its sectors. and mindlessly demanding authoritarian solutions.

However, the answer lies not simply in the process of choosing our representatives, as some naively claim, or in imposing a hideous dictatorial solution.

The first decision, that is, simply the best choice of the recipients of our votes, turned out to be insufficient, since the process of registering candidates is too filtered within the political parties themselves, especially their leaders, who choose those who clearly support with their own personal projects.

On the other hand, a dictatorial decision would imply an even greater concentration of power, which necessarily, as history shows us in countless cases, always leads to greater arbitrariness and social damage with the subsequent elimination of our public freedoms.

Therefore, it is urgent that we go through the maturation process of our democracy through deep and genuine political reform that opens up space and focuses on multiple measures. Re-election, in addition to withdraw for elected representatives who distance themselves from their campaign promises.

On the other hand, immediate savings are imposed on election campaigns, which cannot be more expensive than the more pressing needs of taxpayers and recipients of public resources.

This time, it is unacceptable for a country with a lack of public resources to tackle major problems in several areas, such as infrastructure, health, education, culture, etc., Allocate billions of reais to finance political campaigns that will return little or nothing to concrete results for obtaining citizenship.

However, it is time to re-categorize political debate, which should go beyond personalism or simple and undeveloped ideological issues, focusing on the really important issues that should be transferred and entrusted in a certain way to our representatives.

In other words, in addition to fruitless binary and populist discussions, it is necessary to hold a serious discussion about the maturation of our democracy, which invariably undergoes deep political reform, which involves all other measures to improve our state.

Without this, the billionaire’s electoral fund will not be the bottom of the well, but simply another chapter in a new political tragedy, which indicates that the well always has a loophole and that the Land of the Future is always and invariably stuck in the past.

* Leonardo Bellini de Castro, District Attorney. Master of Laws from USP