UPDATE, 13 Oct.: The comment thread continues to grow, with lots of great discussion of the elections, including the preference vote used in the legislative election, and the representation of women. Thanks, propagators!
Incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva obtained 48.6% of the vote in his reelection bid. His closest challenger, Geraldo Alckmin, came in at 41.6%. Brazil requires an absolute majority, which Lula missed by about 1.4 percentage points (about 8,023,101 votes).
I have expressed my skepticism before (in this block of plantings on “electing presidents” and in specific discussions of Haiti and Congo) of requiring the “magic number” of one vote more than half, when the leading candidate is much closer to 50% than to his or her closest challenger.
In any event there will be a runoff, which will be expensive and divisive. And, almost certainly unnecessary. I know of no case anywhere in which a leading candidate with more than 47% has been defeated in a runoff by a challenger who was more than a few percentage points behind. (If anyone knows of a case, please comment; I collect these sorts of things like I collect fruit trees!)
The third-place candidate, with 6.9%, is a leftist defector from Lula’s Workers Party (PT).
Congressional and state elections were also held in Brazil on Sunday. I have not seen results. How did the PT do?
Here are the new distribution of lower chamber seats in Brazil, Matt.
PMDB 89. PT 83. PFL 65. PSDB 65. PP 42, PSB 27. PDT 24. PL 23. PTB. 22. PPS 21. PV.13. PCdoB.13. PSC.9. PTC.4. PSOL.3. PMN.3. PRONA.2. PHS.1. PAN.1. PRB.1. PTdoB 1.
The PT lost 8 seats relative to 2002, and is no longer the largest party in Chamber of Deputies.
Best,
Octavio
Seed planted by Octavio Amorim Neto — 03 October 2006 @ 07:23
A rectification, Matt: The PHS received two seats, not one.
By the way, nominally, this is the most fragmented legislature ever elected in Brazil: Laakso & Taagepera = 9.3. Maybe one of the most fragmented ever elected in the world. Maybe.
However, there will be many parties merging before deputies take up their seats because this year a 5% threshold will be applied. So nominal fragmentation will be reduced. It should be noted that the enforcement of the threshold will not be straightforward. Parties failing to overcome the threshold will have legislative representation but will lose key legislative rights. Actually, so far nobody knows how such a distinction will operate. So help us God!
Best,
Octavio
Seed planted by Octavio Amorim Neto — 03 October 2006 @ 08:08
I agree that runoffs are problematic. I actually prefer to pre-2003 Bolivian solution of parliamentarized presidentialism: the legislature chooses from among the top two winners, which generally requires the formation of a multi-party governing coalition. I think that in the absence of a mixed-member proportional electoral system, it can work well, and comes closer to a “parliamentary” model.
Seed planted by Miguel Centellas — 03 October 2006 @ 08:58
Hola, hay dos o tres casos, aunque en este momento recuerdo sólo dos: Portugal 1986 y Lituania 1998.
En 1986 en Portugal Freitas do Amaral, apoyado por los partidos de centro y los socialdemócratas, obtuvo en la primera vuelta un 46,6 por ciento frente al 25,4 por ciento de Soares. Sin embargo, a pesar de este amplio margen, la polarización izquierda/derecha de esta elección hizo que se agrupara en la segunda vuelta el voto de izquierda alrededor de Soares, que recibió el respaldo tanto del comunista Alvaro Cunhal como de los demoliberales de Pintasilgo, y acabó venciendo por el escaso margen de 200.000 votos (sobre 6 millones de electores), al obtener el 51,2 por ciento de los sufragios por el 48,8 por ciento de su adversario conservador.
En Lituania en las elecciones de 1997/98 el candidato más popular Arturas Paulaskas –apoyado por el Partido Democrático del Trabajo (LDLP) del presidente Brazauskas y por la Unión Liberal Lituana desde el comienzo de su campaña- recibió el 45,28 por ciento de los votos emitidos en la primera vuelta frente al 27,9 por ciento de su rival en el run-off, Valdas Adamkus. Eliminado en primera vuelta Landsbergis, presidente de la asamblea, tanto el Partido de la Unión Patriótica de éste como los cristiano-demócratas, los partidos más importantes de la coalición mayoritaria en el Seimas, asà como otros grupos socialdemócratas y de centro, otorgaron su respaldo a Adamkus, quien ganó en la votación final por sólo 14.256 votos (sobre 1920.800 votantes), obteniendo el 50,37 por ciento de los sufragios.
Saludos.
Antonio.
Seed planted by antonio garrido — 03 October 2006 @ 14:45
Antonio, thanks for this. I knew about the Portugal case, and it was with it in mind that I wrote “47%”; however, I should have dropped the “about” from my original wording. (I have fixed it now.)
I had forgotten about the Lithuania example, though the leader was just over 45% in the first round.
Still, these are truly remarkable examples of come-from-behind wins.
If Alckamin comes back against Lula’s 48.6%, it will be a record, I think, for any runner-up who is not already nipping at the leader’s heals. Of course, in percentage-of-the-vote terms, Alckamin is in better shape than either Soares or Adamkas. He could do it, but it’s not likely.
[Antonio, I edited your comment so that it would be your words, and not mine which you quoted, that would lead the entry that appears on the front of the blog.--MSS]
Seed planted by MSS — 03 October 2006 @ 15:02
SÃ, Matthew, habÃa pensado alrededor del 46/47%. Por encima del 48% no hay ningún caso, como tú apuntas. El único ejemplo en un sistema presidencial creo que es la Répública Dominicana en 1996 cuando Peña Gómez, tras obtener un 46% de los votos en primera vuelta frente al 38% de Fernandez, fue derrotado en la segunda vuelta por éste. Es significativo que los dos casos que mencioné (Portugal y Lituania 98) sean democracias semi-presidenciales del subtipo que denominas “premier-presidentialism”, con un presidente debil. Lo interesante es analizar todos estos casos como problemáticos en relación con la fórmula de “double complement rule”.
Seed planted by antonio garrido — 03 October 2006 @ 15:51
Thanks, Octavio, for the distribution of Chamber seats, but can I find these figures elsewhere on the internet?
The official results page ranks all the candidates by personal vote. I presume that the seats should first be distributed between the party-lists?
Seed planted by Bancki — 04 October 2006 @ 03:57
Bancki, in the website you cited the elected candidates are in bold, and, seats are distributed within party and coalition lists.
So far I haven’t been able to find an official source of the overall distribution of seats per party. Newspapers have been culling data from the Superior Electoral Tribunal website and consolidating it so as to publish tables with seats per party.
Best,
Octavio
Seed planted by Octavio Amorim Neto — 04 October 2006 @ 07:10
Matt, according to Brazilian journalist Fernando Rodrigues at his blog at there have been 17 second-round upsets (“viradas”) in Brazilian gubernatorial runoffs since 1990. In 1994, Hélio Costa won 48.3% of the first round vote in Minas Gerais and lost the runoff. In 2002, Ottomar Pinto won 49.2% of the first round vote in Roraima and lost in the runoff (!). So it actually COULD happen in the presidential race this year, and my sense is that it is not only possible but even likely….I would like to thank Theo Epstein for freeing up my schedule this October to analyze stuff like this. TIM
Seed planted by Tim Power — 04 October 2006 @ 09:05
Tim, thanks. I have not yet looked into subnational majority-runoff elections. Those cases you cite are worth a closer look.
Seed planted by MSS — 05 October 2006 @ 06:34
Regarding Antonio’s comments (#6), please watch for the next issue of PolÃtica y Gobierno, in which I will have a piece that dicusses the possibility of come-from-behind wins under majority runoff, whether that phenomenon (and the majority-runoff system itself) is a better “fit” for premier-presidential systems than for presidential systems, and the double complement rule.
The short answer is that I think the majority runoff system is best for premier-presidential systems, but the logic for plurality (qualified with a runoff when the plurality is very low or the margin very tight, as with the DCR) is actually stronger the stronger the presidency. Maybe I will summarize here, and explain the seeming paradox of that conclusion, at a later date.
Seed planted by MSS — 05 October 2006 @ 06:59
Do political careers ever really die in Brazil? To my shock and amazement, Fernando Collor de Mello was elected senator in Alagoas…
Seed planted by Tareq — 10 October 2006 @ 06:17
Women’s representation has stalled.
Only 45 women were elected to the Chamber of Deputies, just a few more than the 42 who were elected in the previous elections, in 2002.
Noteworthy women elected included Manuela d’Ãvila, a 25-year-old journalist and sociology student, was elected as a Communist Party deputy with the highest number of votes in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, on a ticket in alliance with Lula’s PT (Workers’ Party).
Of São Paulo’s 70 deputies, 3 are women. Of Rio Grande do Sul’s 31 deputies, 3 are women. A small silver lining: women won half the eight seats in Congress from little Amapa, its northernmost state between the Amazon and French Guyana.
Seed planted by Wilf Day — 11 October 2006 @ 00:32
As Wilf notes, the percentage of Brazilian deputies who are women will be only around 8.5%.
This is a reminder of how poor open lists are at electing women–something shown in various cross-national studies, even in Europe. It is hard to imagine the percentage in Brazil being so poor if lists were closed, meaning that parties could place some women in electable list ranks.
Prominent women should be aided by open lists, which reward personal visibility. But if there is a shortage of prominent women for whatever reason, open lists only reinforce gender inequality.
Seed planted by MSS — 12 October 2006 @ 07:52
As to “how poor open lists are at electing women, even in Europe” — that depends. It’s true if political parties give a higher value to nominating and electing women than voters do. That was true in a famous study on Norway’s municipal elections, and seems to be true in most (all?) of Latin America.
But in the 2002 Sweden election their new open list system helped a net of two women to “break the slate.” Matland’s classic studies on this point need updating.
And in Canada today, 90% of voters say they want to see more women elected. It’s the party members who hesitate to nominate a woman when they nominate one candidate at a time; they seem not to have read the poll with the 90% figure.
The BC Citizens’ Assembly, themselves selected on a gender parity model, designed an open list MMP model, and then decided they liked STV even better. In both cases they believed that, once parties nominate more women (as they normally do when nominating more than one candidate, especially if they nominate five or more), voters will elect them.
The Quebec Citizens’ Committee (again with equal men and women)chose a closed list MMP model, but not to help women; they gave nomination of ethno-cultural minorities in good list positions as their rationale.
The Ontario Citizens’ Assembly (again with equal men and women) will have to consider this issue soon. A lot of us think they will go with open lists, trusting Ontario’s voters more to elect more women than they trust parties to give them good list positions.
Seed planted by Wilf Day — 12 October 2006 @ 11:09
Very interesting thread! A few thoughts:
First, should we believe the polling that says that 90% of voters want to see more women elected, or could this be a case of voters just giving the “right” answer? My doubt stems from my general position that if the voters *really* demanded more women in office, parties would comply- they have no reason not to.
About the BC case, the official material does indeed say that STV will be good for diversity, but the reality is that if increasing the representation of women was one of their top priorities, the Citizens’ Assembly would not have chosen STV. I have my own theories as to why STV is not a good choice for increasing the representation of women, but no matter my theories, the facts are that in the 2 cases that use STV to elect national legislatures (Ireland & Malta), women do poorly. In Ireland, for example, usually around 20-25% of the candidates nominated are women, but the actual % of women elected usually hovers around 12-14%. I’m curious- does anyone out there happen to know of a case where STV is used at the local/regional level of elections and representation of women is high?
Seed planted by Melody — 13 October 2006 @ 12:59
“does anyone out there happen to know of a case where STV is used at the local/regional level of elections and representation of women is high?”
I’m not an STV advocate. Results depend on local circumstances. The 90% figure was for a Canadian survey.
The results for open-list MMP may have similar problems, except that parties tend to nominate longer lists for MMP districts, which helps women, while for STV elections the best tactic is usually to nominate only the number you can hope to elect — except in Tasmania where voters must rank at least five candidates in the five-seater districts.
Tasmania started to do better for women after the Labor Party adopted an affirmative action policy. Then the two big parties dropped from seven-seaters to five-seaters to screw the Green Party — which of course worked — and side-swiped women’s representation in the process.
Northern Ireland does not have a women-friendly political culture. Of the 51 Belfast City Councillors (elected by STV), only 16 are women, 31%, better than Ireland or the USA, but not great.
You would expect Wellington City Council in New Zealand to give you the best result for women in a local STV election. Of the 14 councillors, 5 are women, 36%, not bad. They have five wards — four three-seaters and a two-seater, too small district magnitude for good diversity, or they might have done better.
By contrast, Belfast has one seven-seater, four six-seaters and four five-seaters. The Alliance Party councillors all come from the six- or seven-seaters, demonstrating nicely why five is too small for Northern Ireland. But the 16 women don’t happen to show this — they come 6 of 20 from five-seaters, 30%, and 10 of 31 from larger wards, 32%.
Scotland is about to use STV for their local elections May 3 2007. We’ll see how women do there.
Seed planted by Wilf Day — 14 October 2006 @ 05:50
Matthew, regarding your comments whether the majority runoff system is best for premier-presidential systems, but the logic for plurality (or qualified plurality, DCR…) is stronger the stronger the presidency a recent work by Heather Stoll argues that the greater the power of president (“the power of prizeâ€) the more electoral coordination we will find both within electoral districts and aggregating accross them. In a more recent paper also Allen Hicken (your disciple?) suggest a non-linear relationship between the powers of the president and the number of presidential candidates. Increasing presidential powers is associated with fewer presidential candidates over a moderate range of presidential power. However, where presidents are extremely weak or extremely powerful increasing presidential power actually produces a larger number of candidates. Hicken demonstrate that the substantive effect of presidential powers on the effective number of candidates is more than twice as large as the effect of the electoral formula (plurality, majority run-off…).
Seed planted by antonio — 26 October 2006 @ 13:10
Why I blog
Sometimes a reader points me to something in the academic literature that I might otherwise have missed.
Scion grafted by Fruits and Votes — 27 October 2006 @ 09:29
Two presidential runoffs today
Today, voters are going to the polls in runoffs to decide two elections that I covered here in their first rounds: Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Scion grafted by Fruits and Votes — 29 October 2006 @ 12:40