A quem cabe o direito de votar? : embates sobre a participação eleitoral dos analfabetos na experiência democráica brasileira (1945-1964)

Abstract

Excluded from national political life by the Saraiva Law, promulgated in 1881, illiterate people resumed participation in the electoral processes in Brazil only after approval of Constitutional Amendment No. 25 of 1985, having, for example, been excluded from political processes during the period from the end of the Estado Novo (New State), in 1945, until the civil-military coup that deposed President João Goulart in 1964. During that period, the percentage of illiteracy in the country varied between 61% and 46%, that is, for all those years most of the Brazilian population, coming from the poorer classes, was excluded from the decision-making processes. In addition to the exclusion of illiterate people, this period was also marked, among other things, by periodic, uninterrupted, and mostly non-fraudulent elections, by an unprecedented increase in the electorate, resulting from the incorporation of the working classes, and, consequently, by the competitiveness and unpredictability of the elections. In this paper, we seek to understand how Brazilian political institutions (Executive, Legislative and political parties) dealt with the issue of the votes of the illiterate population between 1945 and 1964, and also what this demonstrates about the tensions generated in the ‘politics’ sphere by the expansion of the electorate and characteristics and limits of this democratic experience.