Government and politics
According to bridgat.com, Brazil is a federal presidential representative democratic republic, with 26 federal districts. The Constitution currently in force was promulgated in October 1988. According to this constitution, the president-elect serves a 5-year term. All 26 states have their own popular elections, legislatures, and governments. The Federation is defined in five fundamental principles: sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of the person, the social values of work and free initiative, and political pluralism. The classic division of power into three — executive, legislative, and judicial — is officially established by the constitution. [28]
The executive and the legislative are organized independently in the three spheres of government, while the judicial is only organized at the federal level and at the state and Federal District spheres. [29] Voting is compulsory for literate citizens between the ages of 18 and 70, and is optional for illiterates and those 16 to 18 years of age or over 70 years of age. [28]
The main political parties in the country are: the Workers’ Party (PT), the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) and the Democrats (DEM).
International relations
Brazil is a political and economic leader in Latin America. However, this claim is partially rejected by other countries, such as Argentina and Mexico, which oppose the Brazilian goal of obtaining a permanent place as the region’s representative on the United Nations Security Council. [30] .
Brazil currently maintains ties with most of the UN member nations, in addition to supporting with its activism and international weight issues such as the sovereignty of Palestine and the condemnation of the control currently exercised by the United Kingdom over the Malvinas Islands.
Infrastructure
Transport
Brazil has a network of roads of around 1.8 million km, of which 96,353 km are paved. Highways are the main communication route for the transport of cargo and passengers. [35] President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–1961), who conceived and built the capital Brasilia, was one of the great promoters of road construction. This government was also responsible for the construction of factories in the country of the companies Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors. Over the years, other large car manufacturers were installed in the country, such as Fiat, Renault, Peugeot, Citroën, Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Toyota. This allows Brazil to be the seventh most important country in the automobile industry. [36] There are about four thousand airports and airfields in Brazil, 721 of these are paved runways, including landing areas. Guarulhos International Airport, located in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region, is the largest and most important airport at the national level, a large part of this movement is due to the country’s freight and passenger traffic and the fact that the airport connects to São Paulo to practically all the big cities of the world. Brazil has 34 international airports and 2,464 regional airports. [37]
Communications
The Brazilian printed media have their origin in 1808, with the arrival of the Portuguese royal family to the national territory, since previously any publishing activity was prohibited —both for the publication of newspapers and books. [38] The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in what is now Brazil, began to circulate on September 10, 1808. [39] Currently the print media have consolidated as a means of mass communication with the foundation of several newspapers that today are among the best-selling in the country and in the world, such as Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo and Estado de S. Paulo, as well as the publications of the April and Globo publishing houses. officially in Brazil on September 18, 1950, [40] introduced by Assis Chateaubriand, who founded the first television channel in the country, TV Tupi. Since then the television industry has been growing, at the same time that several networks of stations such as Globo, Record, SBT and Bandeirantes were created. Television still represents an important factor in the modern popular culture of Brazilian society. Digital television began on December 2, 2007, initially in the city of São Paulo.
Territorial organization
Brazil is a federation made up of the indissoluble union of 26 member states, a Federal District and the municipalities. [41] States and municipalities are characterized by having self-management, self-government and self-organization, that is, they elect their leaders and political representatives and administer their public affairs without interference from other municipalities, states, or the Union. To allow self-management, the Federal Constitution defines what taxes each unit of the federation collects, as well as the way in which they can be distributed among them. [28] The states and municipalities, according to the desire of their population expressed through the vote, can divide or unite; however, the Constitution does not give them the right to become independent from the Union. [28]
The states of the federation are grouped into five geographic regions: Center-West, Northeast, North, Southeast, and South. In addition to territorial proximity, when making this division, other natural aspects were taken into account, such as climate, relief, vegetation and hydrography. [42] Executive power in the States is exercised by a governor elected every four years. The judicial power is exercised by the state courts of first and second instance that oversee the administration of justice. [28] The Federal District has characteristics common to the states and municipalities, although unlike the member states, it cannot be divided into municipalities. The municipalities are a territorial district endowed with legal personality and with a certain administrative autonomy. They are the smallest autonomous units of the Federation and each one of them has its own Organic Law that defines its political organization, although it is limited by the Federal Constitution. [28] The exclusive economic zone of Brazil, also called the “Blue Amazon”, is the Brazilian territorial waters that occupy an area of approximately 3.5 million km².
