Os desafios da democracia representativa: uma análise da influência dos gastos de campanha sobre o resultado das eleições de 2010 e 2012 na Bahia

Abstract

This paper analyzes the influence of economic power on the outcome of elections for elective office. It is intended to expose debate the characteristics and limits of the Brazilian representative democracy, especially in Bahia democracy. Precisely we discuss the influence of campaign spending on the outcome of the 2010 and 2012 general elections in Bahia. The influence of economic power, as a sore sick democracy, is presented as fact able to intensify the limitations and intensify the contradictions of the representative system, notwithstanding the electoral process related to law enforcement seek to mitigate such effects . Here is a contradiction of the representative system which is of argument in this paper: the exercise of economic power candidates for public office have seduced the great mass of voters with electoral propaganda and illusory, and promises to deliver goods and personal advantage, turning elections an arena of economic struggle. Therefore, the vote has not been the result of a conscious decision that assesses political ideas and projects, but has elapsed the spending capacity of the candidate. However , a true democracy, political representation will be more legitimate the more free, equal and are conscious voters and candidates for elected office, to the point of spending campaign does not become the determining factor in the election of the governing factor. The lack of political representation of the interests of the majority of the population implies a limitation of the system and reports the lack of legitimacy of representatives, which holds democracy as a romantic ideal that is not realized, or merely a letter of intent that the power game does not allow to become reality.