AMERICA/BRAZIL - Support of the Church with regards to the formation of political consciousness for democratic reform

Thursday, 20 November 2014

Brasilia (Agenzia Fides) - On November 18 the Episcopal Council for the Pastoral Care (CONSEP), a body of the Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), discussed the issue of political reform in Brazil. According to the note sent to Fides the Auxiliary Bishop of Belo Horizonte, President of the Episcopal Commission of the Pastoral Care for Culture and Education, His Exc. Mgr. Joaquim Giovanni Mol Guimarães, spoke to the Bishops on the proposal of a popular initiative concerning the law for the democratic political reform and transparent elections.
"After the elections, we need two important actions: the more people are interested in discussing political reform, the better it is. Because the more we discuss the subject, the more a political consciousness is created. The second action is to work for the collection of signatures, because the process is not so simple, since to sign one must have a registration number as a voter or the full name of the mother", said Mgr. Joaquim Mol. The Bishop stressed that the bill is not at the service of any political party, "on the contrary, it comes from organizations and social movements".
The bill proposes: to end the influence of economic power on elections and the "barter" during election campaigns; a transparent vote through the proportional electoral system with a vote in two rounds, in order to strengthen political parties, stop parties without programmatic identity, reduce the number of candidates and ensure effective supervision of the electoral process; gender equality in the preordained list of candidates; the strengthening of the mechanisms of direct democracy: plebiscite, referendum and popular initiative projects.
On November 13 the proposal of the "Projeto de Lei de Iniciativa Popular pela Reforma Política Democrática" was made public by the popular coalition for political reform and transparent elections. The Church has already, in the past, supported these initiatives for the formation of a civic consciousness of the population and a democracy without corruption (see Fides 24/09/2011). (CE) (Agenzia Fides 20/11/2014)


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