Opinion – Marcos Lisboa: Drums and smoke

The electoral dispute is announced as a confrontation packed with intimidation and drums. There is a fear that nonsense is not restricted to slogans.

In the days following the 7th of September last year, there were threats of roadblocks and sketches of violent demonstrations. There were those who feared loss of control. At that moment, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) declared, with its constitutional authority, that it would not condone the rupture. It was effective.

Since then, the Judiciary has been colluding with the rupture of institutional practices that guarantee electoral competition. Lawmakers approve unsustainable public spending to benefit their parishes in the months leading up to elections.

In developed countries, the Armed Forces remain outside the deliberation of electoral processes. They have access to instruments of coercion and therefore must submit to the civil powers that have been elected. Military personnel are paid to protect borders, not to handle electronic voting machines.

The same goes for police forces. They are caretakers of the common good, not their trustees. It is up to them to obey orders, not dictate them, much less delimit the choice of their bosses, as proposed by a bill in Congress.

The September 2021 STF does not look like the STF of recent months. The secret budget remains secret. Electoral and party funds remain instruments of few constituents. Denunciations of misdeeds with public funds have no major consequences. And, in the midst of all the economic difficulties that the population is experiencing, the STF grants itself a double-digit salary readjustment.

The 2022 Legislature, in turn, continues its work of usurping executive functions. Congressmen order servers to spend to meet parochial interests, as they are “impositional amendments” or part of the agreement that is up to the rapporteur’s amendments. The PEC Kamikaze trampled on the rite of the Legislature and basic principles of the electoral process.

Campaigns rarely discuss how to tackle these issues. Government and parliamentarians are partners in the funds that privilege congressmen and allies of the party summits to the detriment of others. The government discovered the “retractable roof”. The mandated opposition also benefits from the amendments and the electoral fund.

There are relevant differences. Government supporters are concerned about the brutality and repeated threats to institutions. The main opposition, on the other hand, accepts the elementary rules of democracy. But there are also disturbing similarities.

The successive interventions in regulatory agencies began two decades ago. There was the threat of expulsion of a foreign journalist and the resignation of private sector analysts who were critical of the government.

Cuban refugees asked for exile but were deported. There was complacency with authoritarian regimes, such as Venezuela’s. The fundamental value of democracy, which is now used to rally the opposition, was not so relevant at that time.

The exchange of favors with interest groups and the strengthening of parties in the center began to lead politics for more than a decade. Lava Jato has run over the rule of law. So did the widespread corruption that preceded it.

FHC transmitted a presidential banner and a legacy of State institutions, with procedures for managing conflicts, such as the Fiscal Responsibility Law or regulatory agencies.

His successors, however, bequeathed an economy eroded by the distribution of subsidies and favors to the private sector. There was a gradual weakening of the procedures of cross-control of public policy. At the beginning of the last decade, the government used numerous tricks to mask its accounts and promote unsustainable spending.

The president appears to prefer not to participate in debates. The same goes for your opponent. Both defend similar measures on various issues, such as fuel price controls. The governing and opposition parties are complicit in the trivialization of amendments to the Constitution.

Everything indicates that the economy will remain stagnant in the coming years. Microeconomic distortions, resulting from poorly designed public interventions, hamper productivity and income growth. The lack of fiscal control was camouflaged by high inflation, perhaps the most perverse way of adjusting public accounts.

Evidence shows that a significant part of poverty in many countries stems from the design and management of social policies and the protection of inefficient companies. It is worth reading the book “Making Social Spending Work”, by Peter Lindert, and the article “The Facts of Economic Growth”, by Chad Jones. However, the campaign advances as if voluntarism and intention were enough to overcome our problems.

Politics matters, but so does technique. Detailing public management, whether in the design of cash transfer programs or in the complex relationship with the private sector, requires technical care, governance and analysis of evidence. Technically ill-conceived interventions have adverse side effects to those intended.

The rule of law is strengthened with the guarantee of contradictory and the system of checks and balances for public management. These are not abstract themes. They unfold in government practices in developed countries, such as the non-retaliation of the press that criticizes it, however unfair it may be, and the non-favoring of those who support it.

Mature democracies have built mechanisms that limit public management discretion to favor interest groups out of fear of corruption. There is another risk. Subsidy-based policies often fail to achieve their goals. However, they create castes that benefit from these privileges and that entrench themselves to prevent their removal (Mancur Olson, “The Logic of Collective Action”).

Managers, public and private, tend to hide their failures or misdeeds. Sometimes, they adopt opportunistic measures, with immediate benefits in exchange for much higher costs in the future. Hence the importance of governance, including regulatory agencies, with a mandate and authority, which guarantees the transparency of procedures and the evaluation of results.

In the last two decades, we have gone against this agenda and we have witnessed the weakening of rules and control institutions. The result was a greater capture of public policy by interest groups, making, for example, even more complex the tax system and the multiplicity of benefits granted.

Electoral discourse is silent on our problems, including many that weaken the practices and institutions of democracy. Will there be public commitments to ensure that this time will be different, or will we just have more of the same that got us here?