Infamous political reform

Research by French economist Vilfredo Pareto revealed a constant and unusual relationship: 20% of a company's employees produce the equivalent of the remaining 80%. The 80-20 rule also applies to the public sector. "Pareto's Law" is relevant in a wide variety of situations. Even in football: identifying the two main opposing players (20%) is half the battle. Shortening the gap between these variables implies better quality, an essential reference point in the debate on political reform.

The trick of proportional representation, whereby the voter chooses one candidate but may end up electing another, will be a thing of the past. One of the proposed models to eliminate this distortion is based on the adoption of closed lists. The vote would fall to the party, whose candidates would be listed at a party convention. The vote for the party would determine the number of seats to be filled according to the pre-established order (pre-ordered list).

Between one model and another, the preference for the mixed-member proportional representation system is gaining strength. Of German origin, half of the seats would be distributed through the proportional system, whose candidates would form a closed list, the other half through the district system: regions divided into districts, each electing one representative, the candidate with the most votes. The voter would therefore cast two votes, one for the list and another for the district.

Changes are also expected in the campaign finance model. The current system encourages trickery and favors corruption. The candidate becomes beholden to their private financier. It is necessary to neutralize economic power in political decisions, while ensuring greater equality among candidates for elective office. Public financing of electoral campaigns would give greater prestige to the popular will, bringing to the coffers of the Party Fund resources morally committed to social well-being. In addition, the oversight of spending by the Electoral Court, focusing on political parties, would be more concentrated and more efficient.

However, any new system is doomed to failure without the urgent empowerment of the voter. The current stage of republican maturity recommends the introduction of an annual "recall" to monitor politicians from the Pareto group. In the month of October, the Electoral Court would indicate locations in municipalities where voters could optionally express their disapproval of state deputies via electronic voting machines. This would give them performance feedback and the possibility of change. However, upon reaching the disapproval ceiling (party quotient), the parliamentarian would lose their mandate, being replaced by the next one on the list, in the case of a closed list, or the second most voted, in the case of a district list.

Our timid democracy, accustomed to disappearing after each election, would give way to a continuous exercise of citizenship in the pursuit of more virtuous legislatures at all levels. Without changes that grant real power to the citizen over the mandate bestowed, everything will be nothing more than an illusion, a journey to merely exchange one bad situation for another.

Ali Mazloum, federal judge in São Paulo and professor of Constitutional Law (Twitter @alimazloum)