Federations disappoint in the 2024 elections, and party crisis increases

Party federations made their debut in municipal elections in the 2024 election, but the performance of the acronyms involved in these groupings has left something to be desired.

With only 51 city halls in dispute in the second round, it is already clear that the parties that make up the 3 federations operating in the country were unable to recover the number of people elected in 2016 or 2012.

READ ALSO: What are party federations and what are their rules?

A survey carried out by InfoMoney based on data from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) shows that only the Workers’ Party (PT) will end the 2024 election with more mayors elected than in 2020, going from 182 to somewhere between 248 or 261, depending on the results this Sunday (27).

Since 2022, the acronym of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) has been part of the Brazilian Federation of Hope (Fé Brasil), together with PC do B and PV ─ parties that do not have representatives in this second round and must end these municipal elections with respective drops of 59% and 70% in the number of mayors from the last election to now.

But even the growth of the PT should not be celebrated by the party. This is because the result in 2024 will remain below that achieved in 2016 (254 city halls), a year in which the party dehydrated in the wake of the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff and the advance of the Lava Jato operation. 12 years ago, the party had no less than 637 representatives in charge of the Executive Branch at the local level.

Subtitles that are part of other federations also dried up, despite the union movement. The PSDB, which had 799 mayors elected in 2016 and now only has 269, and could reach 274 in this second round. The party, which governed São Paulo for almost three decades, suffered significant losses in the state.

Cidadania, which is part of the federation with the Tucanos, saw its number of city halls plummet 77% from 2020 to now, reaching the mark of 33 representatives. The party is in just one second round dispute, in São Bernardo do Campo (SP) with federal deputy Alex Manente, and elected representatives in just 3 municipalities with more than 100 thousand voters: Macaé (RJ), Lages (SC) and Our Lady of Help (SE).

The third federation operating in the country, formed by PSOL and Rede Sustentabilidade, has not achieved encouraging results so far. The socialists failed in the first round (compared to 5 mayors elected in 2020), but once again they are trying to win the candidacy of Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) in São Paulo (SP) in this second round. They are also trying to elect Yuri (PSOL) in Petrópolis (RJ).

Rede Sustentabilidade, the party of Minister Marina Silva (Environment and Climate Change), went from 5 elected to 4 in the last election and has no representatives competing in the second round this Sunday.

See the evolution of the number of mayors by federated party:

“The reduction in parties cannot be attributed exclusively to federations, but also to the political situation”, observe analysts from the consultancy Arko Advice.

In a report distributed to clients, the experts presented the variation of councilors elected by federated party. With the exception of PT (+17%) and Rede Sustentabilidade (+16%), all showed declines from the last elections here.

“The fall of the PSDB, for example, which lost 32% of councilors, reflects the process of dehydration of the party over the last few years, as it lost space to other center and right-wing acronyms, such as PSD and PL”, they continue.

“However, the influence of federations on party performance cannot be ruled out, given that the vast majority of solo parties had an increase in the number of councilors this year”, they conclude.

See the evolution of the number of councilors by federated party:

Municipal elections usually anticipate movements in the correlation of forces in the party game that will be seen at the national level in subsequent elections. Therefore, the results indicate difficulties for many acronyms that have joined forces in federations in the next dispute.

One of the challenges faced by party groups is the so-called performance clause, which limits parties’ access to resources from the party fund and free advertising on radio and television.

In the 2026 elections, only political parties that alternatively: 1) obtain, in the elections for the Chamber of Deputies, at least 3% of the valid votes, distributed in at least 9 Federation Units, with a minimum 2% of the valid votes in each of them; or 2) have elected at least 15 federal deputies distributed across at least 9 UFs.

In this sense, party federations tend to represent a kind of “lifeline” for small acronyms, which run the risk of not meeting the requirements required by legislation to access party fund resources.

What are party federations?

Established by the National Congress in the 2021 electoral reform (Law No. 14,208/2021), party federations consist of a type of meeting of two parties or more, with the aim of allowing parties to act in a unified manner throughout the country. Often , the model is seen in practice as a test for a possible merger or incorporation of acronyms in the future.

Party federations can have candidates both in majority elections (positions of president, governor, senator and mayor) and in proportional elections (positions of federal deputy, state or district deputy and councilor). Which could be an advantage for the acronyms, since currently the legislation restricts coalitions only to the first case.

The federations created function as a single party association and can support any candidate, as long as they remain that way throughout their term of office. This means that they must be in force for at least four years.

According to the rule established by the Electoral Court, a federation that, up to six months before the date of the election, has registered its statute with the court, and has, in its composition, at least one political party that has , until the date of the convention, definitive or provisional governing body in the district of the dispute.

Precisely due to the obligation to remain in the same bloc for at least four years, the ideal is for federations to be established between parties with programmatic affinity. The measure reduces the risk of voters helping to elect a candidate with an ideology opposite to theirs, as often occurred in coalitions in proportional elections − a model prohibited by current legislation.

A party that leaves a federation before the minimum period of four years will not be able to join another and will not be able to enter into a coalition in the following two elections. Another penalty is not using the Party Fund during the time left to complete the period in which it should be in the federation.

The exception to this rule occurs if the federation is dissolved only in the event of a merger of parties or incorporation. According to legislation, the same rules apply to party federations that govern the activities of parties. In fact, if a candidate elected in a proportional dispute decides to disaffiliate, without just cause, from a party that is part of the federation, he will lose his mandate.