Silence, the Great Lesson – Folha de S. Paulo, December 6, 1978
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
In Brazil, as in the rest of the world, democracy has both supporters and opponents. This has been true throughout human history, as people have devised and experimented with almost infinite variations of government—monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic.
However great the differences in this field may be, it is certain that these forms of government are, in themselves, understandable and defensible. In this matter, however, there is something neither understandable nor defensible: contradiction.
In my view, nothing is more contradictory to democracy than its dependence on compulsory voting to function. For insofar as the people are the country’s highest authority, they are the great sovereign, according to legal and political jargon. I do not see how they can be forced to vote. It would be the same as forcing a monarch to exercise his office. Whoever had the power to do so would be the true monarch, for whoever has the right to command the king is the only true king. When voting is compulsory, the supreme power does not belong to the people but to those who compel them to vote.
Furthermore, if a voter has no political convictions or patriotic ideals that freely lead him to vote, he confesses his intellectual or moral incapacity. If he then refuses to vote on that basis, forcing him to vote is equivalent to forcing a disinterested or incapable king to rule.
What advantage does such an extorted vote confer on the State? What value can it have in determining the nation’s direction?
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All these considerations are related to the results of the most recent election.
According to definitive data for the state of São Paulo—which I take as an example—11.3% of voters abstained, 11.3% cast blank ballots, and 9% cast invalid votes. In other states of the Federation, these percentages appear to have been generally higher. Thus, in total, 31.6% or more of Brazilians declared themselves uninterested. The sum is considerable and has sparked multiple comments.
However, I did not see anyone ask what this figure would be if voting were not compulsory and each “sovereign” voter were free to choose not to be dragged to their respective polling station. The results would certainly be astonishing.
Insofar as compulsory voting contradicts democracy, it is undeniable that our democracy, operating on a shoestring, is even more contradictory, with an impressive number of voters who prefer to resist the law rather than exercise their sovereign right to vote.
The remedy? It consists of getting voters interested in political, social, and economic issues, or of inserting issues that interest voters into the public debate. Well, the election results clearly show that many, or even a majority, of voters were bored with the menu of issues offered during the last election.
We need to air, broaden, and enrich the political debate. We need to remove as much of the narrow-minded personalism as possible and offer voters far fewer of the monotonous myriad of candidate photographs plastering every available wall during the election period, and far more substantial party programs.
To this end, it is essential that the press, television, and radio present the real issues and the arguments for and against the various solutions available to voters.
I will give two illustrative examples of how rarely this occurs.
During the current legislative session, a divorce bill was approved. This important issue should have been the subject of speeches, public lectures with debates, the distribution of substantial, interesting, and accessible brochures, newspaper articles, and controversies that would have given it all its vitality in the public mind. In other words, the public would have had no opportunity to express their authentic opinions on the issue as long as it was not the subject of lively, entertaining conversations in social life and in the intimacy of homes. What can we find if we look for some of this material? I can only see the great Pastoral Letter on divorce by the distinguished bishop of Campos, Most Rev. Antônio de Castro Mayer, published in 1975.
Incidentally, the CNBB’s and individual prelates’ statements on divorce seemed pitifully poor, or at least the newspapers’ coverage of them did.
The same could be said of the speeches of congressmen and senators. I received substantial statements from some anti-divorce representatives. Senator Nelson Carneiro and other divorce advocates may have made equally substantial statements. They did not send them to us, certainly because they rightly judged me to be “unconvertible.” However, what I read about them in the newspapers was also poor. The result was that, amid delirious enthusiasm in artificially overcrowded galleries, the legislature approved divorce while the nation slumbered. Once the measure was enforced, almost no one used it. The nation continued to slumber alongside the hot, poisoned delicacy that Congress had served it.
It has thus become clear that the people did not truly want a divorce bill when they elected the congressmen who foisted divorce on Brazil. What, then, did the approval of divorce mean for us?
Another example is tenancy law. A majority of the urban population consists of landlords and tenants. The issue should be a hot topic for both sides. After all, their individual and household budgets are at stake.
However, the press, television, and radio have not given this important issue the proportional coverage it deserves. As far as I know, most candidates have avoided taking a position on it. As I write, Congress is deliberating on the matter at the eleventh hour, imposing on the country, it seems, a tenancy law that has no connection to the choice of current or future candidates.
To what extent do they represent the thinking of the sovereign nation on this issue? To what extent did the nation itself decide on this matter?
There would be no end to it if we turned our attention to the economic or socioeconomic problems that are constantly affected by the laws, regulations, and ordinances our country is producing today, more than ever.
The people do not even have time to form an opinion about what technocrats and businessmen (the latter with ever-decreasing influence) are deciding on the matter. But how can we assume that it is truly the people who want what they decide?
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In short, the alternative is clear. The State legislates continuously. If there is no Herculean publicity effort to inform public opinion in a genuine and attractive way about what candidates want to legislate and what legislators actually legislate, the people are left on the sidelines. Disinterested voters vote only on a whim, and democracy tends to become a fiction.
Back in the days when it was lawful for the people to applaud kings but not to boo them, the people had a way to express their discontent: They remained silent as kings passed by. Hence the well-known proverb: “The people’s silence is a lesson for kings.” Voter disinterest is a lesson for the political class and the media.
I say this not to rebuke but to express my free opinion as a Brazilian. I really do not see how we can have a coherent democracy if we miss the opportunity this democratic élan offers. And what we should not want in democracy, as in any other form of government, is for it to be contradictory.
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Summary
The results of the latest elections have taught the political and media classes a valuable lesson: the lack of interest among an impressive number of voters, despite voting being compulsory. How much greater would this lack of interest be if it were not compulsory?
What is the remedy? How can we prevent people from being marginalized while the State continuously legislates, voters from becoming disinterested and voting only on a whim, and democracy from becoming a fiction?
In other words, how can we have a coherent, non-contradictory democracy?
