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1993 Brazilian constitutional referendum

Field	Value
name	1993 Brazilian constitutional referendum
title	Which form and which system of government should be applied in Brazil?
date	21 April 1993
country	Brazil
part1_subject	Form of government
part1_choice1	Republic
part1_percentage1	86.60
part1_choice2	Monarchy
part1_percentage2	13.40
part2_subject	System of government
part2_choice1	Presidentialism
part2_percentage1	69.09
part2_choice2	Parliamentalism
part2_percentage2	30.91

A constitutional referendum was held in Brazil on 21 April 1993 to determine the form of government of the country. After the re-democratization of Brazil, an article in the new Constitution determined the holding of a referendum for voters to decide if the country should remain a republic or become a monarchy again, and if the system of government should be presidential or parliamentary. Voting for "monarchy" and "presidentialism" in tandem would annul one's vote.

At the time, the country had been a republic for 104 years since the coup d'état that overthrew the monarchy on 15 November 1889 and, apart from a brief parliamentarian experience between 1961 and 1963 (also defeated in a referendum), the system had been presidential. Since the republic was originally a provisional government resulting from a military coup, a decree under the first republican Constitution predicted another referendum to popularly legitimate or change the current form of government.

As to the 1993 referendum, the Constitution specified that Congress, sitting in joint session, would be empowered to effect a revision of the Constitution in 1994 by an absolute majority instead of the qualified majority procedure with separate votes in both houses of Congress that is usually required for constitutional amendments; any change of regime decided during the referendum would be adopted during the said constitutional revision.

Federal Law n° 8.624, signed into law by President Itamar Franco on 4 February 1993, regulated the holding of the referendum.

An overwhelming majority of voters favoured the republican regime and the presidential system. In spite of heavy campaigning on TV and radio, turnout was relatively low (73%), considering that voting is compulsory in the country.

Origin

The attempted resurrection of the imperial regime came from federal deputy Antônio Henrique Bittencourt da Cunha Bueno (from São Paulo's Democratic Social Party), a member of the Constituent Assembly which approved the 1988 Constitution which put an end to the military regime. A monarchist since childhood, and son of Antônio Sílvio Cunha Bueno, one of SDP's founders in São Paulo, he decided to propose to his fellow deputies the holding of a referendum to give the people the possibility to choose the form of government they preferred. His main argument was that during the reign of Pedro II, Brazil had experienced a period of great stability. Surprisingly, his proposal was included in the new Constitution. Bueno managed to convince the Constituent Assembly that, since the Republic had been proclaimed in Brazil by means of a military coup d'état in 1889, without any say of the people, the Brazilian nation should be given the chance of deciding the form of government of their choice. Given that, when the Constitution was approved in 1988, the country was in a process of returning to democracy after a long military regime, the idea of giving the people the opportunity to decide their form of government (either choosing the restoration of the monarchy or opting for the republic, an option that would give popular legitimacy to a form of government that had been first imposed in a military coup) gained wide support in the Constituent Assembly. Also, several members of the Assembly were in favour of a parliamentary republic (the original drafts of the constitution provided for a parliamentary system of government within a republic, but a vote by the Assembly altered the draft so as to preserve the presidential Executive); those members of the Assembly who favored a parliamentary model and who had been defeated in the system of government vote then supported the proposal that led to the inclusion in the constitution of the provision summoning the referendum. The supporters of a parliamentary republic, who desired only a referendum on the system of government (parliamentary or presidential) voted in favour of Bueno's proposal for a question also dealing with the form of government (monarchy or republic), because they reckoned that all monarchists would also vote for a parliamentary model in the system of government question.

In May 1992, Bueno launched the Parliamentary Monarchist Movement alongside Pedro Gastão of Orléans-Braganza, then head of the Petrópolis branch of the Brazilian Imperial Family and one of the two claimants to the defunct Brazilian throne. According to him, only petistas were able to rival the monarchist militancy. On 4 February 1993, President Itamar Franco signed into law the bill N° 8.624, which regulated the holding of the referendum.

Campaign

According to some polling institutes, the monarchist campaign was able to obtain the support of 22% of the voters in 1992. Concerned about this, the main political parties at that time, such as PT, PFL, PMDB and PTB formed the so-called Presidential Front on one side and the Parliamentary Front (PSDB) at the other side in order to oppose the ambitions of royalist groups. In spite of the defeat obtained by the monarchist movement, their slogan Vote for the king () became one of the most well known in the history of Brazilian electoral campaigns, and 13.4% of the voters supported a monarchical regime.

Controversies

The 1993 plebiscite was marked by several controversies, particularly regarding the treatment of the monarchist option. The Superior Electoral Court (Portuguese: Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, TSE) was criticized for not allowing members of the Brazilian Imperial Family to participate in the free television campaign slots, which, according to monarchists, hindered the personalization and proper representation of their proposal. There were also concerns about the speed and transparency of the vote counting process, as well as the extremely limited airtime allocated to the monarchy compared to the other options. After the vote, the significant number of ballots cast in favor of the monarchy — over 13% — was largely ignored in public and political discourse, leading supporters of the monarchist cause to claim symbolic erasure of that portion of the electorate.

Results

State results

State	Electorate	Abstention	%	Monarchy	%	Republic	%	Null votes	%	Blank votes	%
Acre	237,001	102,191	43.1%	11,292	11.1%	90,520	88.9%	14,376	10.6%	18,622	13.8%
Alagoas	1,041,236	325,352	31.2%	64,326	13.4%	414,747	86.6%	142,350	19.8%	94,461	13.2%
Amapá	169,409	73,832	43.6%	8,838	10.8%	72,743	90.2%	5,554	5.8%	8,442	8.8%
Amazonas	1,012,167	470,406	46.5%	63,575	13.9%	394,427	86.1%	33,207	6.1%	50,552	9.3%
Bahia	6,701,268	3,052,930	48.5%	247,454	9.4%	2,371,859	90.6%	494,347	13.5%	534,678	14.6%
Ceará	3,809,457	1,332,959	35.0%	212,748	11.4%	1,655,965	88.6%	295,062	11.9%	312,723	12.6%
Espírito Santo	1,618,431	382,081	23.7%	134,398	14.8%	773,667	85.2%	188,417	10.8%	139,868	11.3%
Federal District	908,429	144,507	15.9%	69,552	11.2%	550,285	88.8%	94,667	12.4%	49,418	6.4%
Goiás	2,514,553	766,846	30.4%	174,937	13.0%	1,171,341	87.0%	215,623	12.3%	185,806	10.6%
Maranhão	2,590,598	1,518,669	58.6%	63,094	7.3%	799,739	92.7%	85,181	7.9%	123,915	11.5%
Mato Grosso	1,196,767	480,481	40.2%	75,689	13.7%	477,506	86.3%	73,411	10.2%	89,680	12.5%
Mato Grosso do Sul	1,127,470	288,838	25.6%	92,456	14.2%	559,890	85.8%	96,569	11.5%	89,717	10.7%
Minas Gerais	10,116,428	2,258,639	22.3%	731,714	12.8%	4,993,712	87.2%	1,200,918	15.3%	931,445	11.8%
Pará	2,616,490	1,260,558	48.2%	153,898	14.3%	922,941	85.7%	113,001	8.3%	166,092	12.2%
Paraíba	1,986,739	660,655	33.2%	82,876	8.7%	866,191	91.3%	201,175	15.2%	175,842	13.3%
Paraná	5,495,947	1,189,892	21.7%	420,276	12.8%	2,855,862	87.2%	611,048	14.2%	418,869	9.7%
Pernambuco	4,247,205	1,357,513	32.0%	222,020	11.1%	1,787,302	88.9%	481,357	16.6%	399,013	13.8%
Piauí	1,857,832	613,604	33.0%	48,059	4.8%	951,774	95.2%	103,191	8.3%	141,204	11.3%
Rio de Janeiro	8,732,024	1,541,654	17.6%	938,964	16.3%	4,821,310	83.7%	842,977	11.7%	587,119	8.2%
Rio Grande do Norte	1,417,805	441,848	31.2%	58,936	8.7%	620,418	91.3%	170,266	17.4%	126,337	12.9%
Rio Grande do Sul	6,069,273	941,185	15.6%	372,469	8.8%	3,835,721	91.1%	403,378	7.9%	516,520	10.1%
Rondônia	661,331	331,660	50.1%	37,226	14.9%	213,098	85.1%	35,000	10.6%	44,347	13.4%
Roraima	101,947	42,465	41.7%	5,121	10.5%	43,872	89.5%	4,093	6.8%	6,396	10.7%
Santa Catarina	2,974,926	507,669	17.0%	272,577	14.5%	1,611,149	85.5%	343,173	13.9%	240,328	9.7%
São Paulo	19,812,705	2,538,737	12.8%	2,210,203	16.6%	11,109,007	83.4%	2,487,620	14.4%	1,467,136	8.5%
Sergipe	891,788	291,995	32.7%	48,252	11.5%	372,350	88.5%	109,413	18.2%	69,778	11.6%
Tocantins	621,900	348,574	56.1%	19,601	9.3%	191,524	90.7%	23,442	8.6%	38,759	14.2%

References

{{in lang. pt Nunes, Branca. [http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/caca-ao-voto/tag/comerciais/ "Entre o parlamentarismo e a monarquia, o Brasil resolveu continuar presidencialista"] {{webarchive. link. (15 June 2011 . Blog Caça ao Voto. ''[[Veja (magazine)). Veja]]''. 15 October 2010.
{{in lang. pt Agência Senado. [http://www.senado.gov.br/noticias/Especiais/eleicoes2010/historia/presidencialismo-nasceu-com-a-republica-e-foi-confirmado-por-plebiscito-em-1993.aspx "Presidencialismo nasceu com a República e foi confirmado por plebiscito em 1993"]. [[Senate of Brazil. Federal Senate]]. 13 August 2010.
[http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/1851-1899/D0001.htm]. "Art. 7º - Sendo a República Federativa brasileira a forma de governo proclamada, o Governo Provisório não reconhece nem reconhecerá nenhum Governo local contrário à forma republicana, aguardando, como lhe cumpre, o pronunciamento definitivo do voto da Nação, livremente expressado pelo sufrágio popular."
{{in lang. pt [http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/L8624.htm Presidency of the Republic - Law N° 8624, 4 February 1993.]
Biluczyk, Roberto. (2020-01-01). "Os monarquistas e o Plebiscito de 1993: construções da memória e das representações". História Unicap.

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