MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Elections Brazilian style: 13% of voters confess to have “traded” their vote

Brazilian ethics: do as I say, not as I do

An estimated 17 million Brazilians, 13% of the electorate, confessed to have traded their vote for money, job or gifts, according to a public opinion poll released Sunday by Folha de Sao Paulo.

Under the heading “The ethics of Brazilians”, and with information from pollster Datafolha, 83% of Brazilian over 16, admitted to have been involved in some form of illegal action or practice.

Although 13% admitted having “traded” their vote in some election, 94% considers it condemnable, and 74% of Brazilian believes that registered voters effectively “trade” their votes with the candidates.

More over 12% admitted to be willing to accept money is exchange for some request from a political candidate to vote him.

Datafolha concludes that overall Brazilians think correctly about ethics, and understand it, but do not act according to principles.

“Or we are living in Scandinavia and we don’t realize what we are doing, or what we effectively do does not correspond to what we say or sustain”, said anthropologist Livia Barbosa, who analyzed the results of the interviews.

The poll also revealed that rich Brazilians have committed more ethic abuses than the poor: 97% admit having committed ethical infringements compared to 74% for the poor.

A majority of Brazilians, 68%, admit having bought faked-pirate goods, 36% paid for bribes; 27% illegally downloaded music from internet and 28% purchased football and music concert tickets from illegal hoarders.