In Brazil, the world’s fourth largest democracy, 85% of Congress members are men and 76% are white, leaving women and people of colour drastically underrepresented. The average declared wealth of a congressperson is R$3.6 million (US$880,000), with 49.7% owning over R$1 million (US$240,000), which places them in the top 0.1% of the population while 27% live in poverty.
Similar levels of political inequalities are found in many other countries, and this does not happen by chance. The way our political systems are built and operate today is one that reproduces and reinforces structural injustices and imbalances - and this is largely due to the way elections work, based on rules and dynamics that favour candidates from privileged backgrounds.
This is the focus of “Whose Democracy? A study on inequalities and elections in Brazil”, that has just been published by Instituto Update and was developed with the support of the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Atlantic Institute (available here in Portuguese only). Based on extensive literature review and in-depth interviews, the report explores what are the most relevant inequality-related factors that make it difficult or impossible for women, black people and low-income people to run for legislature and get elected in the country, and points to seven main dimensions of the development of candidatures in which inequalities significantly affect electoral prospects.
