Brazilians ban all politicians convicted of corruption from running for office
Brazilians ban all politicians convicted of corruption from running for office. Well done, those two million Brazilians who signed the online petition demanding this amazing new law. Here are two news stories about the new “Ficha Limpa” (clean record) law:-
- in The Economist (Here’s Avaaz.org’s copy of the article)
- in Brazil’s The Rio Times (Here’s Avaaz.org’s copy of the article)
And well done Avaaz (Avaaz.org) for organising this petition.
Avaaz are doing some tremendous work mobilising us, ordinary people around the world, for social justice. Another recent success was the recent banning of legalised commercial whale hunting against the desires of various pro-whaling governments like Japan.
Other recent pushes by Avaaz include campaigns to:-
- Ban stoning people to death for adultery in Iran
- Ban the military use of land-mines (notably by the US) which causes millions of innocent victims long after the relevant wars have ended
- In my own country, the UK, stop dis-enfranchising the people by continued use of the “first past the post” voting system
- Many, many more campaigns which you can read about on Avaaz.org
Let me return for a moment to the cause that is closest to home for me in the UK.
Why does the first past the post system dis-enfranchise the British people?
Unless you happen to actually want a Conservative or Labour party government, your vote is useless: it makes exactly no difference to the outcome. If you don’t vote Conservative or Labour you might as well not vote at all. In the present system any other outcome is virtually impossible. Even the present (very unusual) Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition is heavily weighted towards the Conservative party with the other party basically tagging along for the ride. Supporters of the present system will tell you that the majority of UK voters are Conservative or Labour supporters.
Not true. Given that any other vote will simply not count, millions of people who hate or fear the Conservative Party vote Labour to keep the Conservatives out. Millions of people who hate or fear the Labour Party vote Conservative to keep Labour out. None of these millions of people have any chance to help their party of choice win seats either to Parliament or in their local councils.
Unless they can shame the British Government into switching to a system of proportional representation. Which is what we’re likely to have a referendum on soon, largely thanks to Avaaz.
Go Avaaz! Go, go, go!
PERSONAL NOTE
In case, you imagine I’m a Lib-Dem supporter, I’m not. My preferred party is the Green Party. I’m not totally in love with all they do but they do represent the Green movement in the UK. So yes, I’m definitely a Green Party supporter. In fact, when I was a member of the Green Party (a long time ago now) I actually spent a lot of my own money, swelling the ranks of Green Party parliamentary candidates. (I did so only because there was nobody else willing to stand: if there had been any chance of my getting into Parliament I would have run a mile).
