Authoritarian Leaders Use Legislature as Basis for Democratic Erosion

The recipe for dismantling democracies and building authoritarian regimes has as one of its main ingredients the control of the legislature, which, in some cases, can become a kind of parliamentary base for an autocrat. The list also includes the suffocation of the free press and the co-optation of the Judiciary.

Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela and Vladimir Putin’s Russia serve as some of the most obvious examples where Parliament was co-opted by a majority that, instead of curbing the leader’s authoritarian impetus, ends up chancelloring it. them.

The scenario is part of what research institutes, such as the Swedish V-Dem, have called the third wave of autocratization in the world, intensified in the 2010s. The first wave would be from 1920 to 1940, with fascism in Europe, and the second, from 1960 to 1980, with the dictatorships in Latin America.

The debate is considered fundamental by experts on the eve of the second round in Brazil, which will decide whether Jair Bolsonaro (PL) remains in the presidency or if the Planalto will see the return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) after 12 years.

Bolsonaro’s repeated authoritarian flirtations — combined with the fact that his party, the PL, has won the largest seats in the Chamber and Senate, reinforcing the possibility of alliances with the center — represent a dangerous instrument for the democratic order, according to experts.

“Democratic erosion happens as if it were within the rules of the game”, says Mariana Amaral, a researcher at Laut (Center for the Analysis of Freedom and Authoritarianism). “Parliament’s role in autocracies has changed; today the process of passing a law respects legal procedures, but does not prevent it from being autocratic.”

Allied with Bolsonarism, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, promoted the instrumentalization of the Legislature in his country. In office since 2010, the ultranationalist won and sustained a majority in the National Assembly with his party, Fidesz.

With this, he managed to pass laws that usurped university autonomy, set back the rights of the LGBTQIA+ population and concentrated power in their hands. Still in 2011, he managed to pass a controversial constitutional reform, supported by his supermajority of legislators, which limited part of the independence of the judiciary.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin instrumentalizes his supermajority with United Russia in the Duma, the lower house, to give legal veneer to his actions. With a constitutional reform sewn into the Legislature two years ago, the Russian, in power for more than two decades, made it possible for him to remain in office until 2036.

More recently, in the Ukrainian War, he has taken to a vote, not surprisingly, proposals such as the annexation of territories in the neighboring country. While in the streets there is dissent — and mass arrests —, in the Duma the members stage great cordiality and support for the leader.

In the Brazilian neighborhood, Venezuela, a recurrent target of Bolsonaro’s criticism, is another example of co-optation by the Powers. In the late 1990s, upon winning a majority in a Constituent Assembly elected to draft a new Magna Carta, Hugo Chávez temporarily annulled the role of Congress.

Political scientist Cláudio Couto, a professor at FGV, says that there was a kind of “elective absolutism” in the country — representatives elected by popular vote chose to support authoritarian measures. Chávez’s successor, dictator Nicolás Maduro, holds a supermajority in the National Assembly to this day.

“When a president or prime minister has a legislative majority capable of producing institutional changes that unbalance the balances and manages to eliminate, from this elective majority, the independence of the Judiciary, then things go awry”, says Couto.

Concern about the Brazilian scenario rose to a new level in the face of the proposal taken up by Bolsonaro to increase the number of ministers in the Federal Supreme Court – if re-elected, the current president could nominate more names to the court, a prerogative he has already used to carry out a kind of blackmail. against the collegiate. There is ample questioning, but one of the ways to fulfill the threat would be through congressional approval.

Yuko Sato, a researcher at V-Dem and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, says that, in addition to the trend towards greater approval of projects harmful to democracy, the control of the legislature by an authoritarian leader weakens the so-called checks and balances, a concept that refers to the institutional balance between Powers.

“Perhaps one of the most radical problems is the weakening of the impeachment capacity”, he says. Target of dozens of impeachment requests in Congress, Bolsonaro was unharmed. The texts were shelved, in part thanks to the inaction of his ally Arthur Lira (PP-AL), president of the Chamber and re-elected federal deputy.

In a recent report, Laut describes Lira as a central character in a change in the dynamics of the House. “He reduced the power of expression of parliamentary minorities and the press and promoted greater centralization of power with the change in the internal regiment that avoids the obstruction of the legislative agenda”, explains Amaral.

With the new Congress designed for the next legislature and new alliances to be forged —Bolsonaro’s PL became the largest bench, but Lula’s PT also grew—the question remains as to how the Chamber and Senate would act to stop advances in authoritarian agendas. On the part of experts, there is no optimism at the heart of the analyses.

“I don’t know how uncomfortable it would be for the physiological parties, from the so-called centrão, to become the legislative base of an autocrat, as long as they continue to enjoy access to power”, says Couto, from FGV.

For Sato, from V-Dem, democratic erosion is already in place, regardless of the outcome of the polls. “In the scenario where Lula wins, this is probably less worrying in the long run; in the scenario where Bolsonaro wins, everything becomes more worrying.”