Female and black candidates for the October municipal elections will receive campaign funds until September 8, less than a month before the first round of voting.
The date was agreed on Monday (26) during a meeting between representatives of parties that will contest the elections and the president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Minister Cármen Lúcia. The parties asked the TSE for more time to distribute the funds.
According to the electoral calendar, parties have until Friday (30) to distribute resources from the Special Campaign Financing Fund and the Party Fund for female and black candidates.
For the parties, the deadline concerns the release of funds into the parties’ national accounts. After release, the amounts will be distributed to the candidates.
According to PT president Gleisi Hoffmann, the funds were received last week and there is difficulty in identifying all candidates who will be entitled to the funds. The party has 36% female candidates and should allocate around 30% of the funds to black candidates.
“The PT has 26,000 candidates for city councilmen and women, plus 1,380 candidates for mayoral positions. We have to count all women, all black and mixed race people, separate white women and black women for the purposes of the quota. So, this cannot be done quickly. Many candidates have not yet opened their accounts, they are in the process of opening them.”
In addition to the PT president, representatives from PL, MDB, PSOL, PSD and PSB also participated in the meeting.
In October, the elections will have 240,587 black candidates, which represents 52.7% of the candidacies. This is the second time in history that the number of black candidates exceeds that of white candidates, which this year is 215,763.
The first round of elections will be on October 6. The second round is scheduled for October 27 only in municipalities with more than 200,000 voters, and in which none of the candidates for mayor has received more than half of the valid votes (excluding blank and void votes) in the first round.
