| Brazil |
This article is part of the series: |
|
|
|
General
|
|
Other countries · Atlas |
On October 23, 2005, Brazil held a country-wide referendum on article 35 of the Disarmament Statute to determine whether to approve or disapprove the article, which states in full, "The sale of firearms and ammunition is prohibited in the entire national territory, except to those entities provided in article 6 of this Law." ("Art. 35. É proibida a comercialização de arma de fogo e munição em todo o território nacional, salvo para as entidades previstas no art. 6o desta Lei."[1]) The referendum failed by nearly ⅔ and that part of the statute was not enacted.
The referendum and its date had been provided by the Disarmament Statute itself (art. 35, §1o)[1]. During the drafting and development of the law, it had been decided that article 35 should be submitted to a referendum because of the importance of its subject. On July 7, 2005, the Federal Senate of Brazil promulgated legislative decree 780, which authorized the referendum. Article 2 of its decree stipulated that the public consultation should employ the following question: "Should commerce in firearms and ammunition be prohibited in Brazil?" ("O comércio de armas de fogo e munição deve ser proibido no Brasil?"[2]) Voters could choose to answer this question "yes" or "no", to leave the ballot blank, and to invalidate their previous votes.
Among the world's countries, Brazil has the second largest number of people murdered annually by firearms, second to Venezuela; each year about 39,000 people in Brazil are shot to death. However, worldwide statistics do not show unambiguously whether this number would be reduced by the prohibition of the sale of firearms and ammunition.
Contents |
The referendum took place much as a normal Brazilian legislative or executive election would. Citizens voted in their respective electoral districts by electronic ballot.
Voting was obligatory for those over 18 and optional for those voters between 16 and 18 or over 70. Voters were required to vote within their districts, unlike the 1993 referendum. Voters who were outside their district on the day of the referendum were to justify themselves with a Petition for Electoral Justification and to submit it at their nearest polling station. Citizens abroad were not allowed to vote. Violators would be assessed a fine of about R$4.00).
The usual prohibition of campaigning on the day of the election was in effect.
Some states of Brazil banned the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages during the day of the vote.
The final electoral results were roughly as projected by surveys conducted by principal Brazilian research institutions in the week before the referendum. The Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics predicted a victory for "No" with 55% of the vote, and Datafolha projected that the result would be 57% to "No". Both surveys had a margin of error of 2%.
| No: 59,109,265 (63.94%) | Yes: 33,333,045 (36.06%) | ||
| ▲ | |||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
After the referendum, the blog of a journalist at the Folha de S. Paulo revealed the main financial contributors to the two sides of the campaign:
|
||||||||||||||