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BRAZIL: Popular Indignation Blocks Congressional Mega-Raise

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 21 2006 (IPS) - The venality of legislators in Brazil, who awarded themselves a 90.7 percent pay raise, resulted in the reemergence of participative democracy in the form of mass demonstrations which prevented them from getting away with the measure.

The recent incident had “a positive side, showing how necessary it is for society to pay careful attention to what’s going on at government level,” Dulce Pandolfi, head of the non-governmental Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), which works to promote public policies to strengthen democracy, told IPS.

The increase of parliamentary salaries to 24,500 reals (11,400 dollars) a month, putting them on a par with those of federal Supreme Court judges, was adopted on Dec. 14 by the executive officers of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate with the agreement of political party leaders.

The decision sparked a wave of protest in several state capitals, with street demonstrations organised by unions, political parties, students and other groups, and several statements from leaders of the bar association, the Catholic Church, and a few individual lawmakers.

The Supreme Court threw out the measure at a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, at the request of three deputies from different parties. The decision of about 20 parliamentarians “cannot overrule the will of 180 million Brazilians,” said Fernando Gabeira of the Green Party, one of the legislators who opposed the raise.

With the raise, Brazilian members of parliament would be the highest-paid in the world, with salaries higher even than those of their counterparts in the United States, many critics pointed out. These comparisons were widely quoted in the press.

Together with other perks of the job, such as travel and office expenses, staff salaries and so on, a Brazilian deputy costs the state over 100,000 reales (46,500 dollars) a month.

A congressional salary increase can only be effected by a law passed by a plenary vote in both chambers. It was therefore unconstitutional for the executive officers of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate to adopt a raise, the Supreme Court justices ruled unanimously.

But some members of Congress retorted that the ruling was “political,” and pointed to the unusual speed with which the magistrates handed down a verdict. Several Congress leaders pledged vengeance, threatening to freeze salaries in the justice system for four years.

Congress is the only branch of government that can decide its own salary levels. The constitution sets a ceiling for public posts, which is the pay received by Supreme Court justices, currently about twice that of legislators.

But the Supreme Court ruling and popular pressure has forced Congress leaders to submit a more modest salary increase proposal to the vote at plenary assemblies in both chambers.

Normally, legislators do not tend to vote themselves the maximum public sector remuneration, and limit themselves to adjusting their last real pay raise – which in this case was in 2003 – to the rate of inflation. This would equate to a raise of 28.4 percent and a monthly salary of 16,500 reals (7,670 dollars), equivalent to 47 times the national minimum wage.

Grabbing for a 90.7 percent raise at a time when a struggle is on to achieve a 7.14 percent increase in the minimum salary, the survival income for millions of poor families, further degrades the already tarnished image of Congress, one of the most discredited institutions in Brazil according to opinion polls carried out in recent years.

This legislative period has been plagued by corruption scandals implicating over one-quarter of the 594 members of Congress, especially in the lower house.

In June 2005, then Brazilian Labour Party (PTB) deputy Roberto Jefferson unleashed a scandal with his allegations that the governing Workers’ Party (PT) was bribing dozens of Congress members from other parties to secure their support.

In September 2005, the then speaker of the lower house, Severino Cavalcanti, resigned after proof that he had extorted money from a businessman in return for permission to run a restaurant in the Congress building.

This year the “bloodsuckers scandal” erupted, when about a hundred deputies were accused of benefiting from a corruption ring involving municipal authorities and companies. Ambulances were bought at inflated prices with public funds, and sold on to the city governments.

In each of these instances, which damaged the credibility of Congress and the executive branch – because of the involvement of so many officials – , mass demonstrations were held to pressure parliamentary investigating committees into taking action to punish the guilty. However, they were unsuccessful.

Now, in contrast, the popular protests against salary hikes for lawmakers, at one of which a woman stabbed Deputy Antonio Carlos Magalhaes Neto with a knife, at least accelerated the Supreme Court ruling.

“The degradation of congressional activities prompted society to mobilise, which is positive, although it creates a touchy situation, because strengthening democracy also requires improving democratic institutions,” said Pandolfi.

“These times of crisis are an opportunity to promote participative democracy, going beyond formal, bureaucratic representation, which is often abused in favour of individual interests,” she said.