Brazil’s 2018 General Elections to Have More Diverse Candidates

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – This year’s elections for president, state governors and congressional representatives in Brazil shows an increase in the number of female and minority candidates. Yet despite the growing diversity, wealthy white males continue to dominate the government in Brazil, says the Institute of Socio-Economic Studies (INESC).

“The profile of the candidates for the 2018 elections shows some change from the last election in 2014, but the challenges for women, blacks and indigenous candidates continue,” states the study conducted by the non-governmental organization.

Of the total of 27,835 registered candidacies for October’s general elections, 69 percent of the candidates are men while only 31 percent are women, despite the fact that 52 percent of Brazilian voters are of the female gender.

The 31 percent of women candidates comes in just above the minimum required by the 2009 Election Law that establishes that each party must have a minimum of 30 percent and a maximum of 70 percent of candidates of each gender.

If one considers blacks the sum of those declaring themselves to have black or brown skin color, the total number of candidates is 46 percent (14 percent women and 32 percent men) a slight increase compared to 2014, when black candidates accounted for 44 percent of the total, but proportionally below the number of blacks in the Brazilian population, 55.9 percent.

The number of candidates declaring themselves as indigenous increased by 59 percent in this year’s elections compared to the 2014 election. According to INESC the number of indigenous candidates seeking to become federal or state officials went from 81 to 129, but continues to make up only 0.46 percent of all candidates.

“Although we can identify more pluralistic candidates from the point of view of ethnic-racial diversity and gender, new candidates will face an electoral system that continues to play against the democratization of power,” concludes the INESC study.

According to the entity the victories obtained by social movements in the last few years ‘were not accompanied by factors that balance the playing field’: white, male candidates with wealth and high incomes continue to benefiting from the country’s electoral model.