The law provides citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on universal and equal suffrage.

Elections and Political Participation

Recent Elections: In national elections held in October, citizens elected Federal Deputy Jair Bolsonaro as the next president. His inauguration was set for January 1, 2019. An observer mission from the Organization of American States considered the elections free and fair.

The law provides for the freedom to contest elections, except for certain enumerated ineligible acts. A 2010 electoral law amendment bars candidates who have been impeached or convicted of corruption crimes or who have renounced office to avoid impeachment. The law does not require a final and unappealable conviction, and it was contested as being counter to the constitution’s article concerning the presumption of innocence. On August 31, former president Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva was ruled ineligible by the Superior Electoral Court to run in the 2018 presidential election under this clause. Da Silva contested the finding in the Supreme Court, arguing among other points that the ruling on his ineligibility before all appeals were exhausted was a violation of his constitutional rights. On September 6, the Supreme Court rejected his appeals.

Participation of Women and Minorities: No laws limit participation of women or members of minorities in the political process, and they did participate.

By law, 20 percent of the political television and radio advertising must be used to encourage female participation in politics. Parties that do not comply with this requirement may be found ineligible to contest elections. In August the Social Liberal Party was banned from fielding candidates in the state of Sergipe for failure to abide by the gender minimums. Some parties also fielded the minimum number of female candidates but reportedly did not provide sufficient support for them to campaign effectively. In May the Superior Electoral Court ruled parties must provide a minimum of 30 percent of campaign funds to support the election of female candidates. Women remained underrepresented in elected positions.

The law provides citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on universal and equal suffrage.

Elections and Political Participation

Recent Elections: In 2015, following a free and fair election, the Liberal Party won a majority of seats in the federal parliament and formed a national government.

Participation of Women and Minorities: No laws limit the participation of women or members of minorities in the political process, and they did participate. The government of New Brunswick provided financial incentives to political parties to field female candidates in provincial elections.

The constitution and law provide citizens the ability to choose their government through free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on universal and equal suffrage.

Elections and Political Participation

Recent Elections: Observers considered the April/May 2017 presidential and the June 2017 parliamentary (Senate and National Assembly) elections to have been free and fair.

Participation of Women and Minorities: No laws limit participation of women or minorities in the political process, and they did participate.

The constitution provides citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on universal and equal suffrage.

Elections and Political Participation

Recent Elections: The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and 45 parliamentarians from 25 countries observed the country’s federal elections in September 2017 and considered them well run, free, and fair.

Political Parties and Political Participation: Political parties generally operated without restriction or outside interference unless authorities deemed them a threat to the federal constitution. When federal authorities perceive such a threat, they may petition the Federal Constitutional Court to ban the party. The court banned two parties in the 1950s.

Under the law each political party receives federal public funding commensurate with the party’s election results in state, national, and European elections. Under the constitution, however, extremist parties who seek to undermine the constitution are not eligible for public funding. In April the Bundestag filed a request with the Federal Constitutional Court to determine if the right-wing extremist NPD is considered to be undermining the constitution and whether it is eligible for public funding.

In February the Lower Saxony parliament excluded the AfD party from the board of Lower Saxony’s Holocaust Memorial Site Foundation. The law reduced the number of board members to four, leaving the AfD without a member as the fifth largest caucus after the SPD, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Greens, and the FDP. The foundation oversees the concentration camp memorial site Bergen-Belsen. Holocaust survivors wrote an open letter worrying the AfD might trivialize the Nazi crimes. On July 30, the AfD challenged the constitutionality of the new law in Lower Saxony’s State Constitutional Court.

Participation of Women and Minorities: No laws limit the participation of women and members of minorities in the political process, and they did participate.

The law provides citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections based on universal and equal suffrage and conducted by secret ballot.

Elections and Political Participation

Recent Elections: The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is the independent electoral body responsible for overseeing elections by regulating the process and preventing electoral misconduct. From August 2017 to August 20, INEC conducted 10 elections, including end of tenure and by-elections.

Many of the elections, such as the Anambra State gubernatorial election in November 2017, were relatively peaceful. In August, however, INEC suspended a bye-election held in Rivers State, citing widespread violence. Press reports indicated that armed men dressed in SARS uniforms attacked election officials in an attempt to hijack election materials.

There was evidence of election malpractice, including widespread vote buying and selling and ballot hijacking by party agents despite the presence of INEC and security agents. For example, the Ekiti State elections in July were peaceful, but marked by pervasive vote-buying. Independent observers reported that during the Osun State elections in September, thugs and members of security services engaged in intimidation of voters and harassment of party monitors, journalists, and domestic observers.

Civil society organizations reported no legal restrictions on their ability to comment or observe parts of the electoral process. They reported aspects of the electoral process, however, remained opaque, allegedly because of deliberate attempts to undermine or circumvent the integrity of the process by stakeholders or because of INEC’s financial or logistical constraints. According to some civil society organizations, attempts to disenfranchise voters were on the rise through circumvention of permanent voter card procedures and targeted electoral violence. In response to some of these trends, INEC regularly cancelled votes from polling units that failed to use card readers properly.

Political Parties and Political Participation: The constitution and law allow the free formation of political parties. As of January, 91 parties were registered with INEC, an increase from the previous 45. The constitution requires political party sponsorship for all election candidates.

Participation of Women and Minorities: No laws limit participation of women or members of minorities in the political process, and they did participate. Observers attributed fewer leadership opportunities for women in major parties and government, particularly in the North, to religious and cultural barriers. The number of women candidates was disproportionally low, and the accessibility of polls for people with disabilities was poor. Women occupied approximately 6 percent of National Assembly seats and 5 percent of state assembly seats. Five of the 37 cabinet members were women. Few women ran for elected office at the national level: in the most recent federal elections in 2015, women constituted just 128 of the 746 total candidates (17 percent) for the Senate, and 270 of the 1,772 candidates for the House of Representatives (15 percent).

The law provides citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on universal and equal suffrage.

Recent Elections: The UK general parliamentary elections were held in June 2017. Bermuda held elections to the House of Assembly in July 2017, and elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly were held in March 2017. Independent observers reported no abuses or irregularities in any of the elections.

Participation of Women and Minorities: No laws limit the participation of women and members of minorities in the political process, and they did participate.