PARTICIPATORY BUDGET AND DEMOCRACY
Tarso Genro
Participatory Budgeting and the State
Building an independent public opinion Consolidation of Democracy The practical critique of Liberty
Implementation and difficulties
growth The role of the district coordinators The role of community leaders
Participatory Budgeting and media
THE STATE BUDGETING latter
years, cities have been forced to play a major role, leading original political experiences and creating new institutions. All over the city and its evolution and the future of the population faced with dramatic living conditions are the subject of debate and research among politicians, university, NGOs, etc.
The growing role of cities tends, on the one hand, economic globalization by reducing the importance of nation states, he returns to the realm of local and on the other hand, the over-concentration of problems due the phenomena of increasing urbanization.
diverse pressures, all type of issues converge in the mayor. "Local responses to these new urban dilemmas are often more effective, are built taking into account the perceptions, motivation and culture of the population, are based on local realities" [1] . Social policies should be effective from the local level, this is a view that according to researchers.
national solutions implemented by technocrats who know nothing about the daily lives of most people, becoming ever more inappropriate. This provides a new role to cities, as demonstrated by studies of sociologists, economists and other researchers social science. If you want to rebuild the nation state, not only from above but also reversing the movement and from the bottom will require a great deal of intellectual reflection: namely, how to rethink the state from a new type of decentralization and a new procesode democratization experienced in relation to people's everyday life. Another point of convergence among researchers: "A local government that wants to respond to a real urban deficits actualesyproponer city project has to be a government sponsor" [2] .
in fact do, take, speak, and not just "manage." This formulation is adjusted but insufficient, "promoter" yes, but be careful, some investment may exacerbate social differences. It would be better to ask: what developer? For whom? Why social project? What experiments must be done to rethink this new type of state?
Bologna and Barcelona are one example. These cities reflect a strategic, planning economic development, cultural, rethinking urban public spaces, from new concepts, even from a new concept of citizenship. The models which suggest the future of cities are obviously ideological foundations and political. The form and content of the proposals of local governments should be examined from the question: Who will run?
The experience of Porto Alegre's Participatory Budget is out of the ordinary. This experience is not content to develop a form of popular participation, not simply to "grease" the mechanisms of formal democracy. This experience goes far beyond: it provides a genuine response to this lack of renewal of democracy of political action by creating a new "public space" where the ordinary citizens, the legislature and the executive and the public space becomes in authentic decision-making center. This is a brand new public space that allows the emergence of a more conscious, more critical and demanding.
This new decision center, which has a direct impact on the type and timing of public investment has been instrumental in generating a better distribution of wealth and thus contribute to the socialization of apolitical. A better distribution of wealth without political socialization is not a big change and can even lead to a paternalism that harms the affirmation of the autonomy of individuals and grassroots organizations of society. Socialize policy untouched wealth can discourage those who are engaged in political struggle and therefore can produce a progressive withdrawal of people into the sphere of privacy.
At the root of the experience of Porto Alegre's Participatory Budget can find some kind of answer to what we call the "crisis of the state."
"The Crisis of the State not only based on their inability to provide satisfactory answers to a whole section of society. It also builds on the growing lack of transparency and its indifference to social reality that breaks through tirelessly seeking alternatives to conflict, movements, producers of new identities, which tend to break the deep isolation individuals. The dismantling of the type of modern life linked to the disappearance of the plant world, predominantly from the Industrial Revolution, and the simultaneous disappearance of the social class structure in that it engendered, has helped to radicalize the bureaucratic impotence of the state, which no longer any kind of legitimacy in the eyes of citizens. The vote of every four years, strength and weakness at the same time representative democracy increasingly appears to correspond to the needs of the legitimacy of a power that, in these times of increasing complexity, the social dynamic is uncertain and fluid needs a continuous confirmation. " [3]
This appointment is not superfluous. Indeed, today most states, and in particular the Brazilian state, are concerned above all by private interests. Not surprisingly, then, that the simple citizen has the feeling that this state is powerless and can not stop the rise of social crisis with its attendant unemployment, violence, etc.. to this state "incompetent", not listen to their needs but instead knows "extract" wealth: the citizen becomes an easy prey for neo-liberal ideology.
course of the participatory budget process in Porto Alegre is neither perfect nor resolve this historical dilemma. The Participatory Budget not only must be constantly changing to renew itself and adapt to growing awareness of citizenship, but must be seen as the beginning of a road. A way must be constantly attended to, in part, to restore the credibility of the state through local expertise and, secondly, to show that it is possible to radically reform (reform in the sense of changing the relationship between the state and society and also to "put pressure" the state itself, putting it to serve the interests of the people).
THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN INDEPENDENT PUBLIC
neoliberal ideology, not only attacks the image State, but also through the way of life resulting from the global economy poses for citizens, "the silent threat of repression and constant disregard for your opinion. They very rarely and refers to these queries are diverted by those who control the media. " [4]
now come to this paradox: it induces people to defend a "system" or a "living model" that is harmful. Participatory Budgeting is a tool of resistance to the totalitarian uniformity of thought.
introduces a very innovative way to fight: the People's Councils, which frame the 16 districts city. They become more of gestation, training, building an independent public opinion. Communities, by the direct exercise of political action, form a critical and discover the pressures through the media by the privileged classes of the state to defend their class interests as the minority.
Participatory Budget creates a new form of public awareness through the democratization of decision making and information on public issues. It is within this process that people understand the functions of the state and its boundaries and begins to make informed choices. It is a space come open and the conditions for the formation of a new kind of citizenship: an active, participatory, critical, which differs from traditional citizenship, the individual claims, the uprisings of the isolated and unproductive.
CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY
For most political scientists, "the field of state intervention continued to decline" [5] . This is not entirely accurate. The state continues to "regulate" the economic system, though he himself is subject to the guidelines of financial capital, essentially "volatile." The latter dominates the world economic development that is to accumulate vast wealth at the service of a few hundred financial institutions.
policies "national" applied by the neoliberal governments of each country subject the State to finance capital guidelines. These large global conglomerates called "progress" to this over-concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. For them, this is "the new world order."
Political democracy is based on the principle of popular sovereignty: the people give a mandate to their government for a specified time. The consequence of this is a democracy which means, first, the ordinary citizen access to politics, but On the other hand, in the clear limits to its participation.
The privileged classes, which have both economic power and the ability to use the media much more easily participate in the electoral process. This is not a reason not to think about a new project of emancipation, capable of integrating the breakthrough that represent regular elections but fair rules. This obliges us to imagine new ways of relating to the power in order to transform and democratize it.
To put it bluntly, democracy is on the agenda. The use of a type of authoritarian and dictatorial political regime under the pretext of defending the interests of the people and workers would be a mistake. The challenges we face are very clear: This is radically democratize democracy, to create new mechanisms that output to the interests of most people and build new institutions, reform or the rupture, which allow future decisions are decisions always shared.
When speaking of democracy, "sharing" means allowing those who have been elected by universal suffrage, political representatives, and those who have come from other forms of direct contact with social movements, access to other forms of "decide" together. Participatory Budgeting is one of the means to move in this direction, as evidenced by its history and method.
In the traditional Republican doctrine we find the following definitions: "There is democracy when several contact groups to gain power through the vote of / people." [6] sure, but I would dare to go further. The traditional democratic ideal is not concerned with building effective forms of "equal participation", or at least more equal, to achieve public decisions. We have to get it.
We have no choice. The modern world as it evolves, generating a deep exclusion, whether under authoritarian regimes and under democratic regimes, forces us to question again the concept of democracy. A concept for which the conquest of government by popular vote does not exhaust the participation of society but, instead, launch another process by creating two centers of democratic power, one that comes from the vote and other institutions coming from direct participation.
This is both a method of decision and the emergence of a form of control over the state and the government. For this, create institutions capable of implementing policies that provide an increasing degree of social legitimacy within a dialectical movement in which these policies are the result of a "consensus" comes from the "conflict" progressively opening the public arena to the involvement of all citizens.
Within this perspective, democracy and freedom go hand in hand, freedom means the ability to influence decisions that allow little by little, reduce inequalities in participation between social classes, which in turn will address the real social inequalities.
PRACTICAL CRITICISM OF FREEDOM
When the Marxists are questioning the notion of freedom within capitalism, which is more than freedom "of the most powerful" are right, but communist societies emerging from Marxism did not know any other answer than the dictatorship. Marxist theory also proposes not reflect on any institution that can strengthen freedom of individuals and therefore be able to promote equality, able to build a new society.
For this theory, under capitalism, freedom is "freedom of the owner" and no true freedom of owning property "anarchic freedom that create monopolies selfish" and not genuine free trade, "the emancipation capital "rather uncontrollable source of social exclusion and corruption and not the real 'people free. "
revolutionary experiences carried out so far, but are designed primarily to reduce social differences have not done more to transform "a world of plenty for a few in a little world for all" [7] . They have improved the state, nor have deepened democracy or political participation. They have raised the level of awareness has allowed citizen or feel a link in the society. They have put an end to exploitation, or selfishness, or the racism or sexism. Although they were inspired by lofty ideals, have not achieved their objective. Clearly
Budget Participatory is not the only answer to this problem, but it is an experience that places special emphasis on the issue of "local power." It targets a universal form of state guidance and the creation of a new type of state that combines traditional political representation (the regular elections) with the direct and voluntary participation of citizens (through the creation of forms "co"). Thus, the representatives elected by universal suffrage and the participants emerged from the voluntary and direct democracy can make decisions increasingly linked with the interests of the population.
The participatory budget process performed a practical critique of the purely formal liberty: the citizen, once he is voted back home until next time. Thanks to the bias of the participatory budget, citizens can directly and specifically, to lead the fight for their rights by combining the individual decisions (wanting to participate) with the collective participation (which generates public decisions).
IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES AND
In Porto Alegre, the idea of \u200b\u200bparticipatory budget came from the municipal election campaign in 1988. At that time, the Workers Party proposed in its program to democratize the management decisions and relying on the People's Councils. The aim was to enable each of the citizens involved in public policy making and in all municipal decision regarding the future.
This idea was inspired more by the general principles of the Paris Commune and the Soviets in local experiences.
The purpose of the Workers Party and of all the parties that supported the candidacy of the left in 1988, was to make a kind of "transfer" of power to organized labor. Thus, the traditional political representation arising from the polls, would be "replaced" direct democracy gradually.
was indeed a vision progressive and positive, though extremely simplistic. The municipal program did not indicate either the way this transfer of power would take place, nor the way how new institutions emerge of people power, or how to resolve the relationship with the House of Representatives municipal legitimate body and, according to the constitution , has many powers.
As a result of the victory of left after the first year in office, had been a large influx of plenary meetings of the neighborhood. In the 16 districts of the Participatory Budget inhabitants of the poorest communities flocked to the meetings. By participating direct investments that could decide who claimed for decades. But all I wanted all at once and demanded that the town would live up to their "promises" and initiate electoral "immediately" work to improve their neighborhoods, completely abandoned by the previous local authorities.
But the town had neither the resources or projects. The first thing to do was to fundamentally reform local taxation, to free up resources (through local taxes) and thus allow the city to respond to the demands and achieve a minimum level of credibility. Also had to establish a dialogue with the city, creating political conditions for citizens to have confidence in new methods of municipal management, integrating, for the first time in the history of the city, ordinary citizens.
The first major tax reform was carried out with a great mobilization of delegates and representatives of the participatory budget, after a difficult negotiation with the local House of Representatives. In addition, during the two mandates of the Workers Party and the Popular Front were other tax changes. This allowed to increase the collection capacity of the municipality (direct collection), which fell gradually from 25% (in 1989) to 51% or so of the total in 1996. This figure was reached in the last year of the second Popular Front government in the city, which ended on December 31, 1996.
Although the money was "in the box ', was not possible to start work immediately since it was first necessary to pay the debts of the previous municipal governments. The intense involvement of communities in the first year was significantly reduced next year, at the time of the participatory budget meetings designed to "discuss tax policy" and "program the execution of the work raised." The disappointment was great. Tax reform (carried out during the first year in office) only had an appreciable effect for population since 1992. It was not until that moment that initiated most determined work over the first two years of the participatory budget.
Despite the weak participation in the plenary sessions of 1990 (second year of the first term) the municipality has complied with the decisions taken by the population. As investments began to implement, albeit belatedly, the "word of mouth" began to operate in the neighborhoods of the lower classes and especially where poor workers live. It was said that "those works had been decided with the participation of organized people." In fact, nature and the type of work and expressed the awareness of each district and their level of organization. The impact of this specific response to the demands were considerable.
GROWTH Since the second term (1990), the participatory budget is already emerging as a new political fact, structuring a new political relationship between the municipality and civil society. With the start of the first works, word of mouth and information issued by a television program made by the Coordination of Social Communication of the Mayor, communities began to realize that "the participatory budget was worth" . The city was gradually aware that actually recognized the municipal government to citizens as the source of the most important decisions. "A new fact" in the form of government began to emerge.
This "new fact" was, first, the practical implementation of decisions emanating from a poor social base that had been mobilized and, second, transparency in municipal management. Began to forge a new popular imagination. Gradually, the neighborhoods, the leaders who had achieved a certain notoriety thanks to the "cronyism" and influence peddling, they lost their personal networks and behavior began to change.
From the first year, the municipality undertook a sustained effort to show clearly that did not reject any citizen for ideological or party. Are continually reminded that it was an open process that all citizens were equal before the town, which every citizen could support the investments necessary to believe. For that it was only necessary to prove its capacity for mobilization and active participation in the decision process.
THE ROLE OF DISTRICT COORDINATORS
The plenary sessions of the Participatory Budget are preceded by a job information by community associations and neighborhood newspapers, newsletters of associations and even and pamphlets published by the town inviting people to meetings. A few days before the plenary session, the township offers delegates and district coordinators of a car with loudspeakers that circulated through the most frequented and Vilas neighborhoods to remind people the time and place of the meeting and invite everyone to participate.
At the beginning of the session, each one "falls" (name and address) to learn how many delegates will choose the assembly. They are entitled to engage people living in that district. For a community
not 'wait', as often happens in such meetings, the Secretariat Municipal Culture provides a popular plays, small sketches that relate important aspects of social life, puppets, music. Often videos are also presented on the status of work undertaken by the Investment Plan of the previous year. The representatives of the city and district leaders are witness to it.
All plenary sessions are accompanied by some political tension. The presence of the mayor and municipal secretaries facilitates and encourages criticism and the presentation of demands, but also the differences between district leaders, each of which tries to assume the major role.
Coordinators districts of the Participatory Budget see to that, the right to speak, all microdistritos, all present to express political positions. Groups of residents and community organizations, represented by their most famous leaders, appointed their own spokespersons.
Maria Eunice de Andrade Araujo, philosopher and educator, popular education specialist, coordinator of the Southern and Eastern District of Porto Alegre from 1992 to 1996, offers the testimony of his own experience:
"district coordinators PB, 'paintings political 'of the town, linked to the Coordination of Community Relations (CRC), occupy the site since 1991 and must meet the following missions:
Track the discussion of the budget process in each district of the participatory budget, without interfering directly in the decisions. The district coordinator sees that the debate is democratic, offers clarification on the criteria that guide the choice of investments, reports the progress of the work started under the investment plan last year and encourages the creation of committees to monitor jobs.
Having a global approach of the actions of the municipality in the district to combat the tendency to fragmentation of local administrative structures. The district coordinator program helps people contacts between and the municipality through meetings and forums dealing with service and maintenance service. Has gradually assumed a role that goes beyond the budget issues. It has become a? Administrative center street ~ mainly in the districts where, in the past, there had been an administrative center.
Being a carrier of certain values. The participatory budget needs an active attitude of cooperation and solidarity. Without this, the logic of competition ('take advantage' at any price) involves a process of exclusion. On the model of solidarity practices, district coordinator should help citizens to negotiate.
is essential to know the interioridades del municipio y la forma de funcionar de la maquinaria administrativa. No tiene que sustituir a los líderes comunitarios, sino ayudarlos a hacer de puente entre el poder municipal y la población, de alguna forma a 'acortar el camino'.
Finalmente, debe tener, además de la confianza de los altos responsables municipales, capacidad de interpelación de todos los sectores de la sociedad. Efectivamente, en situación de conflicto, a menudo juega un papel de mediador que exige cualificación, sentido común y compromiso. Es por este motivo que esta misión se confía a los mejores cuadros políticos. Para ello no hay ni formación ni cualificación específica. Nuestra única escuela deformación That's life, constant action and critical reflection.
In our work can be deviations: for example, replace the leading associations, which is a lack of respect for the autonomy of organized movements, or insure paternalistic deforms the tasks of the community. Are deviations that we monitor, since the relationships in your material, generating subordination and dependency, have not totally disappeared from our political heritage. Another deviation concerns us: whether it has previously been a militant in the district, you risk failing to be impartial. It is for this reason that the Coordination of Community Relations (CRC) has adopted the following standard: district coordinator can not carry on business in the district where you live. Finally, as an additional difficulty, assume the responsibility of being the? Face? municipal power closer to the population and thus become the prime target in case of success or failure of municipal actions.
We have seen how public participation in the participatory budget increased progressively. Although people do not attend regularly (difficulty to that faced by most neighborhood organizations today), you can check for signs of a quantitative and qualitative strengthening of the movement organized in Porto Alegre. In addition, some cross-cutting themes are discussed referring to the city (the agenda of the thematic commissions, Plan, etc.). These positive results are largely a result of militant action in the district coordinators of the participatory budget. "
THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY LEADERS Having been one of the privileged witnesses of this process for eight years, I have seen three types of attitudes among community leaders.
first group leaders limit their involvement only to the budget process. Maintaining patronage habits that do not exceed, are systematically rejected by the communities.
Leaders the second group are transformed during the process. Acquire a new language, are recycled, they begin to pose a real mediation between the base and the town. Modulate the balance of power in relation to the purpose: in other words, defending the work you need by measuring their community compared to other claims arising out of microdistritos.
third group leaders could be classified as "emerging leaders", in other words, community leaders emerged with the participatory budget and to have formed through their working methods. These are the ones who have more prestige among the population. Awareness of
develops leaders throughout the process to the extent that all claims, arising from the communities and therefore compete with each other, are discussed in "the public arena." Gradually, leaders discover not only the limits of official authority, but also the "relativity" in their neighborhood needs in relation to other more urgent and important demands. The participatory budget process does not hit only the narrowness and limitations of representative democracy, and differs from "pure counselor" (within the meaning of the Paris Commune or the first soviets), unregulated process in smarter which outperform others and the "traditional populism", essentially consulted and did not see anything on popular participation rather than a simple piece of information and knowledge used by the executive to make decisions.
The fact that the participatory budget predictability is regulated at the same time is open (any citizen can participate in it) creates, in effect, a culture and psychology in which the leaders they need to know well the rules of the process. On the one hand, should respect and, secondly, should enable the participation of as many people as possible if they want to increase their influence in their decisions.
The "People's Consultative 'leads to submission because ultimately, is the leader who has the power to decide. The "traditional counselor" encourages the political skill of the leader who must move to the participants if they want to drag people in the plenary sessions. This "traditional counselor" has no rules (or autonomous or from public power) to organize a democratic discussion about the claims.
By contrast, the participatory budget process, the decision follows a previously reported that necessarily has to take into account the demands of the other districts. The number of participants, the skill in the debate, respect for the rules approved in advance by all and respect for other leaders, are all parameters that weigh on the final decision.
PARTICIPATORY BUDGET AND MEANS
The participatory budget process has never enjoyed the support of the local press has not been accepted by it. Arguably, has clearly been ignored by local media, not only because it was seen as "something of PT" (which is an "immense" honor for the match!) But mainly because it decreases the pressure they can exert creators opinion and economic groups in the state. In other words, in this process, the influence exerted on the State below upwards. The privileged, in this case are those who are willing to participate, not the called individuals who have influence over the media or the public.
Very few journalists have agreed to participate in the Assemblies of Participatory Budgeting. The few that have been made a good impression (Raul Moreau, Alfonso Ritter et al.) Although unrelated to the Workers' Party, have become advocates of the process and disseminate information whenever possible.
When PB was selected to participate in Habitat II (II World Cities Forum of the UN) in Istanbul, the media and opinion leaders, who had ignored the superlative form, were found in an extremely uncomfortable. Some certainly have not given up their prejudices, do not let a single opportunity to criticize, argue, even, that the participatory budget concerns only "minor" irrelevant to the future of the city.
Their arguments have become even more inconsistent since the PB has made decisions that affect large urban projects as the rehabilitation of the Public Market, Water Treatment Plant Ipanema and structural construction of five roads (for strategic works future of the city). Heavily influenced by conservative ideology, these same journalists do not hesitate to maintain that "vileiros" only authorizes the public markets because they serve their interests.
Qsório Pedro Luiz da Silveira, a journalist and coordinator of Social Communication of the City between 1993 and 1996, and analyzes the relationship of media to the participatory budget.
"In Porto Alegre, the journalistic disregard for the Participatory Budget is primarily due to recognition by media companies, and the revolutionary potential for change that their practices flagrantly contrary to their interests and social groups they represent. Until now, the newspapers (with the exception of the 40 day of neighborhoods and communities that opened their pages to information on the PB), radios and televisions of the gaucho capital hardly notice the remarkable fact is the budget journalistic participatory. This is an unprecedented event even features that brings thousands of people, set in the host city for the media companies (so it does not generate extra costs of coverage), has a social importance regularly and publicly confirmed that it was news in the press of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo and other regions, and has had international recognition and impact concerns the daily life of thousands of portoalegrenses (which would justify, if necessary, their inclusion in the local information section). Social
If such evidence were still insufficient to warrant the attention of the press, we could say that the Participatory Budget offers particularly picturesque scenes, snapshots revealing the professional look of enormous possibilities and extraordinary patterns, themes, stories and photographs. Participatory Budget meetings could be starting points for both news and popular management issues, as there are exposed weaknesses and eventually its merits-like, and mainly for reports on the city and its people.
In short, it is well to remember that the gauchos are noted for their politicization, and the discussion stimulated by the Participatory Budget are consistent with the nature and local culture. So great are the journalistic platitudes that only a strong business lobby driven by political and economic interests can determine the permanence of silence on Participatory Budgeting. But after eight years, every journalist should also wonder if his colleagues did not or no difficulty in discerning what their bosses so ably and quickly noticed. The distance that journalists have with the participatory budget is due solely to pressure from employers and officials counter? "In recent times, impregnated journalists will not be a simplified and nihilistic social vision? Do not be captive to a position that favors the complaint as a practice that gives meaning to his laborious professional life? "In fact, what was perceived as political and social scope of the Participatory Budget? Indeed, a debate on the role of journalism and the journalist in society would cope with the siege imposed by media companies.
For among the many reasons that these have daily for not respecting the rules of good journalism and the public which they live, there's a reason they are very worried indeed: the public can control hobby into fashion, and then the media would be accountable to the society about excesses. "
[1] Ruble, A. Blair et al. "Introduction: Globalism and Local Realities-Five Paths to the Urban Future." In Preparingfor the Urban Future ... Washington, Woodrow Wilson Center Special Studies, 1996 1.
[2] Castells, Manuel and Borja, Jordi. "As Atores city as politicians." Noves Stud, Sao Paulo, CEBRAP, n0 45, July 1996, p. 158.
[3] Utzig, José Eduardo. 'Notes on the PT government in Porto Alegre. " New Stud, Sao Paulo, CEBRAP, n0 45, julio 1996, p. 213.
[4] CORREAS, Oscar. El en el imaginary legal neoliberalism '. En Rights and Neoliberalism: elements for an interdisciplinary reading. Curitiba, editions del Brazilian Institute of Legal Studies, 1996, pp. 4 and 5.
[5] Touraine, A. Letter to the Socialists. Lisboa, Ed Terramar, 1996 36.
[6] BOBBIO, Norberto etal. Dictionary of politics. 2 vol. Brasilia, editions of the University of Brasilia, 1996, 2nd ed., P. 326.
[7] DARHERNDORF, Ralf. Or confit modern social-um ensaio da liberdade on a policy. Sao Paulo / Rio de Janeiro, Edições da Universidade de Sao Paulo / Jorge Zahar Edições, 1992 23.
Tarso Genro. who was mayor of the city of one million inhabitants, Porto Alegre (Brazil) and nominee for president of the Government by the Workers' Party, Tarso Genro, 51, was on Monday (10 / 2 / 1999) in the IC-V host. During his mayoral applied a revolutionary system of citizen participation in the neighbors had real control of budgets and decision-making power.
"Mayor resignation to decide many things, but that extremely large political representativeness "
Do residents themselves decide the investments of each neighborhood? So. Last year over 40,000 people and 1,200 organizations, from clubs to clubs of soccer moms.
Give me an example. For example when I was the Parthenon neighborhood was a serious crime problem. So his neighbors voted for four consecutive years for public lighting and paving for the police could move. was invested in these areas and insecurity is drastically reduced.
Does voice and the Municipal Council vote in the delegate elected from each district? What is in a general council of representatives who are the ones who decide the annual budget. But before the mayor has been in all meetings of each of the 16 districts to defend their proposals.
Did you rejected your proposals? Yes, many times. Example
. I took many districts the nationalization of public transport. But the people left him in fourth place. For them it was more important sewer and we did.
What happens when nobody wants a landfill, that is, when the interests of a neighborhood you face the neighbor? That would solve the General Council participatory council where two delegates from each district.
And when faced with the public interest of the city with particular neighbors, for example, do not want to be expropriated to open an avenue? Elevate the dispute to the General Council once again. And his decision will be taken over by the mayor. So
Porto Alegre Mayor decides much less than anyone else. But their decisions were based on decisions collectively articulated and that makes it a much stronger mayor than the others. Waiver to decide many things, but that extraordinarily broad political representation. So go
the Workers' Party is now in its third term? And we're going for a fourth.
And when you're president of Brazil will apply this system to the entire nation. For now we settle for applying to the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which is the largest in Brazil. But Lulla and introduced a constitutional amendment to implement participatory budgeting throughout the country.
is so beautiful that it seems a dream. Tell me the failures for what has happened and we believe a little more. Many failures. In the early years we received a flagrant hostility of the community. People do not believe us and showed a very aggressive approach to personal insult. We broke the tradition of patronage that it deceived by promises and did not like.
Have you discovered a new type of democracy? Call it an important step in the concept of citizenship. Any other mayor
a dictatorship? No. The political representation is inadequate, but is a important democratic space.
Does this system even more bureaucracy slows Muncipal? Yes Dictatorships are always faster. This is slower but more structuring of society. Patrte Furthermore, every year we improve the "time".
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