A survey revealed that the three Brazilian Armed Forces have up to 115 servers dedicated to lobbying within Brazilian parliaments. The Navy has 12 civil servants, the Air Force, 10 soldiers and the Army, 93 people dedicated “to defending the interests of the Force with Brazilian parliamentarians”, according to the survey. In the case of the Army, most are spread across the states and municipalities of the eight Brazilian military regions. As a comparison, the parliamentary advisory services linked to the commanders of the Forces that are in Brasília, excluding the employees linked to the Ministry of Defense and the local advisory services, have 36 employees in the parliamentary advisory services, a number three times greater than that of the Ministry of Education, which has 10 employees to relate with the entire National Congress. The bulletin O Lobby dos Militares no Legislativo, produced by the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, points out that this is just one aspect of military tutelage over Brazilian politics. “While guardianship remains, we will not have full democracy in Brazil”, he reinforces. These structures are directly linked to the commanders of the Armed Forces, enjoying “complete autonomy for the establishment of their parliamentary relations before the political power to which they must subordinate: the Ministry of Defense and the Presidency of the Republic.” The Ministry of Defense, on the other hand, has a Parliamentary Advisory Board (Aspar) with 13 employees (5 civilians and 8 military personnel). of lobbyists” who are linked to the commanders of the Navy, Army and Air Force. That is, the lobby linked to the commanders is 715% higher than the parliamentary advisory of the Ministry of Defense. “If, on the one hand, this picture helps in understanding the difficulties of the parliamentarians to go against the interests of the FFAA, on the other hand, it is an excellent indicator of the broad autonomy that the military institution has.” For Rodrigo Letz, the Armed Forces have a structure close to that of state power – Personal archive One of the researchers in the study heard by the Agency Brazil, professor of Political Science at UnB Rodrigo Letz, studies the political thinking of the Brazilian military. “The greatest relevance of the study is the concrete revelation, based on data, that each Force has a large structure, very similar to a State power, completely autonomous from political power, not subordinated to civil power, which comes from the power popular”. For Letz, in democracies, the institutional relations of the bureaucracy must be made by political power, even more so when dealing with the military. For the executive secretary of the Vladmir Herzog Institute, Rogério Sottili, the study reinforces the thesis that the military in Brazil form an elite with great political power. The Vladimir Herzog Institute works to “unrestrictly reinforce and defend the values of democracy and human rights”, taking the name of the famous journalist assassinated during the last civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985). For Sottili, only the Ministry of Defense would have to have parliamentary advice to defend the interests of the Armed Forces. “This is legitimate. The problem is having the three Forces acting completely independently of the Ministry, the Brazilian State and the government. Which configures an unacceptable autonomy”. to build “a path for keeping the military in politics.” Military personnel in Parliaments The study by the Tricontinental Institute also investigated the profile of the military in the National Congress. 23 federal deputies and 2 senators elected in 2022 were identified, representing 2.5% of the number of seats. Despite being a minority, the bulletin considers that “military parliamentarians are a reference in the dissemination of corporate values and interests in the legislative process, finding resonance in national political decision-making.” Of these, 5 are from the Armed Forces, 16 from the Military Police and 2 from the Fire Brigade. Only one of the parliamentarians is female. Rogério Sottili points out that the ideological profile reveals the result of the efficiency of the military’s lobby in Congress- Personal Archive All parliamentarians-military are from the political spectrum- ideology identified with the right, according to the survey. The PL has 14 elected parliamentarians, followed by Republicans (6), União Brasil (2), Patriota (2), Avante (1), Podemos (1), PSD (1) and Progressives (1). The representative of the Herzog Institute, Rogério Sottili, points out that the ideological profile reveals the result of the efficiency of the military’s lobby in Congress. “Most of them participating in commissions that are foreign to the interests of the corporation, to the interests of the military. Most work on agriculture commissions”, he points out. Parliamentary Amendments One of the objectives of military advisors in parliaments is to “facilitate the transmission of information on parliamentary amendments”. According to the survey, advisory services are efficient in this regard. Between 2010 and 2021, the annual average in parliamentary amendments was R$143.3 million, with a peak of resources obtained in 2015 (R$394.5 million). Military lobbying in parliaments harms democracy, experts warn – Arte: Tricontinental Institute for Social Research “The peak (of amendments) took place in a period of crisis between the Legislature and the Executive. This indicates that parliamentarians, a power, established a kind of political bargaining chip with a central institution in the Republic, which is the Army, based on the distribution of parliamentary amendments. This is absolutely serious from a democratic point of view”, assesses Tricontinental Institute researcher Rodrigo Letz. Agência Brasil contacted the Ministry of Defense and is awaiting a response.
Agência Brasil
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