Plebiscite for parity at UnB begins this Tuesday (3)

UnB Agency - From 8:30 am this Tuesday until 21 pm on Thursday, professors at the University of Brasília will decide on the voting model for the next rectorial elections. The opinion of the faculty will be gathered through a plebiscite organized by the Association of Professors of the University of Brasília (ADUnB).

On the ballot, faculty members will choose between three voting models: the parity model, which gives equal weight to the votes of staff, students, and professors; the proportional model, which gives faculty members 70% of the votes and technical staff and students 15% each; and the universal model, where each person has one vote. The University of Brasília (UnB) currently has approximately 31 students, 2,5 professors, and 2 technical staff.

A proposal to postpone the plebiscite, presented two weeks ago by the Union of Workers of the University of Brasília Foundation (Sintfub) and the Central Student Directory (DCE), was rejected by the ADUnB leadership. The organizations, which also approved holding consultations on the topic with their respective members, wanted the plebiscite to be held on a single date, between April 16th and the first week of May.

“The decision to hold the plebiscite in April was voted on in an assembly. Only a new assembly could overturn that decision, and there was no time for that. There is no new fact that justifies going back on everything we debated and on the consultation that we have been preparing for four months,” the president of ADUnB, Ebnezer Maurílio Nogueira, told UnB Agência.

Approved with 32 votes in an assembly held last November, the consultation exclusively for professors was proposed by the ADUnB leadership. According to Ebnezer Nogueira, the election results will guide the position the organization will defend in the University Council (Consuni). “We will present the election results at the first meeting of the council after the vote count, which should be completed this Friday morning,” he said. The Consuni, the institution's highest deliberative body, defines the electoral rules of UnB. Elected in September 2008, Rector José Geraldo de Sousa Junior's term ends this year.

Ballots

The parity model was adopted to elect the current administration and that of rectors Antonio Ibañez and João Cláudio Todorov. In other elections, the system that gave professors 70% of the votes, technical staff 15%, and the same percentage to students was in effect.

In an article published in the ADUnB newsletter on the 22nd, Professor Paulo César Marques, from the Faculty of Technology, states that parity guarantees democracy in universities and equal conditions for all members of the academic community. "The university community can exercise its autonomy by electing its leader in the way it decides to elect them," he believes.

Paulo Celso dos Reis Gomes, also from the Faculty of Technology, argues in an article published in the same newsletter that the model of 70% of the votes for professors is the most coherent because it is based on the Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. "Those who coordinate and lead research, teaching, and outreach activities at the university are the professors," he argues.

In another text, Jorge Antunes, a professor in the Music Department, defends universal suffrage. “The University should be a place where freedom of ideas is ensured, which will only flourish if the power of decision of each person who makes up its community is guaranteed. In the 21st century, the reaffirmation of the regime of enlightened despots is absurd,” he states.

In addition to the three voting methods, the ballot presents a fourth option: "indifferent." The votes of the 2.350 professors affiliated with ADUnB will be collected in ballot boxes distributed across 13 locations on the four campuses. Find out where in the table below.

Service

Plebiscite period: April 3rd to 5th

Voting hours: 8:30 AM to 9:00 PM

Voting locations:

Section I: ADUnB headquarters

Section II: Institute of Arts

Section III: Faculty of Health Sciences and Faculty of Medicine

Section IV: ICC South

Section V: ICC North

Section VI: Faculty of Social and Applied Studies

Section VII: Faculty of Technology

Section VIII: Faculty of Education

Section IX: UnB Ceilândia Faculty

Section X: UnB Gama Faculty

Section XI: UnB Planaltina Faculty

Section XI: Institute of Biological Sciences

Section XIII: Institute of Chemistry