Temer: Electoral process vouchsafed by Constitution
Today (Oct. 4), President Michel Temer spoke in defense of the Federal Constitution, turning 30 years old this Friday (5) and considered the main symbol of the process of national redemocratization. Temer was attending a ceremony at the Planalto presidential palace.
Days before the general elections, to be held Sunday, Temer stressed that the electoral process itself is vouchsafed by the Constitution. “We will put to practice one of the biggest fruits of the 1988 Constitution—the ballot. On Sunday, we will elect who is in power and who stands as opposition. We should see this as a matter of course.”
Temer went on to say that the Constitution brought together both liberal and socialist principles, protecting private property and guaranteeing social rights like the right to education and health care.
In his view, there is no need to call a new Constituent Assembly: “Our state must be reformed on a regular basis because we have an extraordinary vocation to think every 25, 30 years, that we are facing an institutional, economic, and political crisis, and that we have to build a new state,” he said, adding that the country attains institutional stability “when its institutions are solid,” which is guaranteed by the Constitution.
The Constitution of 1988
Twenty-one years after the period of military dictatorship, the Constitution was brought into effect to enable the creation of tools to prevent the misuse of power by the government. It was drafted by a Constituent Assembly, formed in 1985 by President José Sarney. It was made up by 559 parliamentarians, among whom 72 senators and 487 federal deputies. Twenty-six of them were women.
At the time, 72,719 suggestions were collected from citizens across the country, in addition to 12 thousand suggestions from assembly members and related organizations.
