Guest Blog from Brazil

Many of the regular readers to this blog will know about my Brazilian partner Vanda. Well Brazil has been much in the news recently, both with the visit of Environment Secretary Ed Milliband to Brazil, but also because of the unfortunate story of the two British women who are alleged to have falsfied an insurance theft claim and, ended up, languishing in a Brazilian prison whilst their case was considered. I have no idea whether these two British women are innocent or not and I hope justice is served, but some press reports of the case, presented Brazil as some kind of barbaric backwater. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I have witnessed myself, when I visited the South of Brazil last Summer. Of course I am biased, but the evidence is there to see, for those who go there.

As a guest blog, Jeff Dalmoro, who is Vanda's nephew, and works in the Brazilian national Parliament in Brazilia as a journalist, has wrtten about Brazil's political democracy - specially for this blog. As you will see, like ours, it throws up its own quirks. I hope you find it interesting:

"Brazil is an independent nation since 1822. From 1500 until 1822 the country was a Portuguese possession. Well, since the independence six political party systems existed in the political scene, although some political scientists will say there were about nine.

During the Monarchy the political system was divided in Liberals and Conservatives, following the tendencies in Europe, mainly in England. But, both parties were deeply connected to the King Dom Pedro II. Liberals and Conservatives alternated as government between 1840 and 1889, when the country was a Constitutional Monarchy.

Since 1889 the Republican period is in course. From that year until nowadays five political party systems existed. In fact, from 1979, when the bipolar system with MDB and ARENA split into a multiparty system, the number of political parties increased and today they are around 30 and registered in the Electoral Supreme Court (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral). But, from this number, we have around 17 parliamentary political parties. In the lower chamber, named Câmara dos Deputados, there are 17 political parties with representation. In the Senate, they are around 12. As we can see, the Brazilian party system is extremely fragmented, mainly when compared to the Europeans ones.

With so many parties represented, the main cleavage is the government x opposition one. There is no clear ideological cleavage in the Brazilian political system today. As we can see, the party that can be considered a Conservative, the Democratas, is since 1994 allied with the Social Democrats, that were inspired by the British Labour Party. The Workers Party (President Lula`s one) is allied to a party which originated in the Authoritarian Regime, the PP. And we have another strong political party which is the PMDB. This party, in simply explanation, is always in the government, regardless of which party is in charge of the Executive.

So here is a brief explanation of the Brazilian political party system."

By Rob Halfon ~ Working hard for Harlow, Hastingwood, Nazeing, Roydon & Sheering. http//roberthalfon.blogspot.com