The elective principle in the municipal chambers of the colonial period

The elective principle has traditionally been much stronger in Brazil with respect to the municipal chamber than to the office of prefect. The importance of the chamber increased in the colonial and imperial periods, when there was no local executive existing as a separate and autonomous body. In the republican phase, with the presence of the prefect (or equivalent official of a different name), this importance diminished, but even so, political and ideological controversies raged over the question of the supervision of the powers of the councillors, a problem inseparable from the elective issue.

According to section 67 of book I of the Phillipine Ordinances, the elective principle applied to the offices of the two ordinary judges, the three councillors, the attorney, the treasurer (when there was one) and the clerk. Other functionaries – parish judges, inspectors, guards, etc – were nominated by the chamber.

The mandate of those elected lasted only for a year, but elections were held every three years, all the officials who would serve in three consecutive years being elected at the same time. According to the ordinance quoted, the election was indirect and took place on the eighth day of Christmas in the last year of the triennium. In the first instance a vote was taken, at a meeting presided over by the oldest judge, of ‘worthy men and members of the public’, and those officials whose term of office was about to expire.