DUAS DIMENSÕES REGULATÓRIAS SOBRE A INFLUÊNCIA DE LÍDERES RELIGIOSOS NO PROCESSO ELEITORAL BRASILEIRO

Abstract

The present article proposes to investigate the democratic legitimacy of the influence of evangelical religious leaders in the Brazilian electoral process, in order to check if this participation has the ability to unbalance the electoral disputes and, in positive case, how would it be constitutionally appropriate to reconcile the requirements of full democracy, with the exercise of religious freedom. Therefore, the article was structured in three parts. The first one approaches the named objective dimension of electoral restrictions which falls on religious activities. The second one deals with the abuse of power in the elections, in order to illustrate, next, possibilities of abuse of right perpetrated by religious leaders. In the third part, is addressed the subjective dimension of those restrictions, that aim to establish normal, free and fair elections. At the end, it is proposed that the religious leaders acts, in the electoral field, be also cleared from the subjective dimension of influence over the religious led, conjugating the Theory of Abuse of Rights and the Theory of legal acts, established in the brazilian civil code, with the abuse of power provided in the electoral legislation.