Good morning! This week, we talk about the positive effects of the 2022 election on Brazil’s party system. Beware of analyses based on abstention rate data. Law enforcement agents and preachers gain space in Congress.
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Defragmenting the party system
Electoral thresholds and recent tweaks in the rules to elect lawmakers will make the next Congress the least fragmented in decades. The number of parties that elected House members dropped from 30 four years ago to “just” 19.
- The number of “effective parties,” i.e., those strong enough to sway congressional votes, will drop to below ten for the first time since the beginning of the 2007-2011 legislature.
Disclaimer. For the purpose of this analysis, we consider “party federations” as a single party — as they are bonded as a single group for the next four years.
Why it matters. This is good news for the party system, which has suffered greatly from an exacerbated level of fragmentation. It could make the legislative process smoother (with fewer players required to reach a...