Brazil is taking huge strides to wash away endemic corruption in politics with a groundbreaking new law referred to as Ficha Limpa – which means ‘clean slate’ in English.

The law will permanently bar anybody from running for any political office (in municipal, state or federal elections) who has any corruption charges or even allegations pending against them.

The law also bars candidates who have been expelled from any professional organisation.

“Every country has political corruption of some sort - the United States, Germany, Israel - but what we are doing here in Brazil with this 'clean slate' law is to add morals to our electoral process and increase the quality of the candidates,” says Luciano Santos, a lawyer who helped spearhead the law.

“The candidates that remain in the election should be those who have a public life that meets – or exceeds - the standards to represent citizens and voters.”

The law has become a major theme in Brazil’s October 3 national elections, where over 22,500 candidates are running in elections that will determine the next president, all 513 seats in the lower house of congress, 54 of the 81 senate seats, all 26 state governorships and hundreds of other local state elections.

While there are still a lot of unanswered questions about how the law will be implemented in the long term, it is being applauded by those organisations that track corruption.

“Although it will be necessary to ensure the full enforcement of the law before we can fully celebrate its impact, this legislation serves as a double-punch in the fight against corruption in Brazil,” says Zoe Reiter, a senior programmes co-ordinator at Transparency International.  

Origins of the Law

The roots of the law can be traced back to an organisation called the Movement to Combat Electoral Corruption (MCCE), an umbrella group comprising over 43 like-minded NGOs and organisations.

Campaigners from MCCE said few politicians wanted to sponsor an anti-corruption bill in congress, so the organisation took advantage of a little-known, and almost never implemented, ‘popular initiative’ clause in congress that says with signatures from one per cent of the Brazilian population a bill can be taken up in congress.

Only four bills in Brazilian history have reached congress in such a manner.

In September of last year, after 18 months of signature collecting, the law organisers forwarded to congress 1.7 million signatures. Soon after, another two million people registered their support for the bill online.

“At that point senators and lawmakers felt pressure to approve the law,” Santos said. “That is the importance of the popular initiative. The people’s will.”

On June 4, 2010 President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed the bill and three days later it became the law of the land.

The law is expected to close one of the major loopholes that has plagued the Brazilian electoral system, supporters say.

Many times a poltician accused of corruption or wrongdoing while in office simply resigns to avoid immediate prosecution and files an appeal to preserve their future in politics in the next election cycle.

“That appeals process could take up to 20 years,” Santos said.

“But in the meantime, they would run again in another election, because there was nothing preventing them from doing this. The new law bars anybody from office during this appeals process. That is a big step.”

Model for Other Countries

Brazil’s 'clean slate' law is being looked at closely by other countries, as well as the international community as a possible model.

Bolivia has a similar, less stringent law, and non-governmental officials in that country are looking to see how Brazil’s law is implemented to see if it could be a model to follow, according to officials in Brazil.

The 'clean slate' law is widely praised in many quarters for its early impacts, but it will take time to see if it can root out long entrenched corrupt politicians.

“The ‘clean slate’ law has already started to produce important results,” Reiter said.

“However, a law in itself cannot tackle the structural problems that impair a system. In order to achieve that, enforcement of the law will be critical and much broader and sustained reform is necessary.”

But with politicians campaigning now on the idea of having a ‘clean slate,’ the law already seems to have forced Brazilian voters to think differently about their electoral process, advocates argue.

“Today we have a national discussion about our politics thanks to this law, and the voter is analyzing the quality of the candidates based on new parameters to see if the candidate has the requirements to represent him or not,” Santos said.

 “I have information that some political parties are now only admitting candidates if they meet the 'clean slate' law.”

Reiter said: “The good news is that the recent success of the ‘clean slate’ law has demonstrated and raised Brazilian society’s awareness of its role and potential as an agent of change.

Civil society in the country is clearly committed to this broader reform agenda and is pushing their representative institutions towards greater accountability, transparency and integrity.”

For the 136 million Brazilians who will cast a vote in elections a few weeks from now, the new law is likely viewed as a step in the right direction and couldn’t come a day too soon.

Adapted from an Al Jazeerah article