On Friday, March 24, the Electoral Commission closed the counting of the votes for the Fiocruz presidential election. Candidate Mario Moreira was elected by the institution’s active public servants with 3,405 votes, the equivalent of 91.68% from the total of 3,714 valid votes. Moreira is the institution’s current executive director, where he has worked since 1994, and is expected to conclude his term by 2024. The electoral process was convened on an extraordinary basis by the Deliberative Council (DC) on January 12, because the then Fiocruz president Nísia Trindade Lima was no longer able to hold her mandate after having been made Minister of Health.

In a scenario of single candidacy, this was the electoral process with the highest participation of Fiocruz employees, a demonstration of the strengthening of participative and democratic management in the institution. According to the Electoral Rules (Art. 25), in the event of single candidacy the candidate must obtain 30% or more of all valid votes. The result will be forwarded to the Electoral Commission for homologation by the Deliberative Council on the meeting to be held on March 31. The name of the elected candidate will then be sent on to the Minister of Health and to the President of the Republic, who will decide on the nomination.

“This is an unimaginable moment in my life and I have to admit I was positively surprised by the result”, said Moreira. “I would like to thank each of my 3,405 voters and everyone who took the time to talk to me, every criticism, every compliment. It was a moment of reflection”, he said. “I believe in a Fiocruz that has the chance to strengthen its institutional foundations to contribute in a much more effective way to rebuild our country, to put it back on the road towards development, towards the fight against inequality”, he stated. 

Mario Moreira said Brazil is going through a difficult moment of its history and that there are many challenges ahead. “We have a government that is willing to keep a conversation, that understands the role played by Fiocruz, played by science and technology. We have to expand our conversation with the Brazilian society. Long live Fiocruz, long live the Unified Health System”, he celebrated.

The president of the Electoral Commission, Maria do Carmo Leal, opened the vote counting ceremony. “We are now in the final moment of this election, after an excellent turnout, with more than 80% of voter presence - the higher electoral coverage in the entire history of Fiocruz elections with single candidates”, she said. “The integrity and fairness of the electoral process has been confirmed by the external audit by UFF”, she emphasized.

The candidate
In Fiocruz since 1994, Mario Moreira has a doctorate in Public Policies by the Federal University of Paraná, with a doctoral internship in the University of Coimbra, Portugal; and a master’s degree in Public Health by the Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health (Ensp/Fiocruz) and another in Management of Technologies and Innovation by the University of Sussex, in the United Kingdom.

The elected candidate has a specialization in Public Management by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation and in 2017 became Fiocruz Vice-President for Institutional Administration and Development, a role that became that of executive director last year. Mario Moreira was designated by Decree no. 1421 of December 29, 2022, to be President of the Foundation during the period between January 2 and April 2 this year.

Electoral process
The Fiocruz presidential election (term 2023/2024) began with the opening to candidacies. Candidates can come from within or from outside the institution and the process was open from January 30 to February 3. The only candidate to apply was Mario Moreira and his candidacy was homologated by the Deliberative Council on February 16. The electoral campaign took place between February 27 and March 21, and the voting process happened on March 22, 23 and 24, followed in real time on votacao.fiocruz.br.  

The electoral campaign mobilized employees in meetings with the candidate at the Foundation’s units. On the eve of the election (March 21), the Electoral Commission held a debate with the participation of three external guests. The goal was to bring to the debate the expectations of the society regarding the role of the Foundation. The second moment consisted of the candidate’s answers to questions that had been sent previously.

Participants were the researcher of the Carlos Chagas Filho Biophysics Institute of UFRJ, Wanderley de Souza, an administrator in the field of Science and Technology; post-doctor in Media and Daily Life by UFF, journalist, Human Rights advocate and state representative (PSOL-RJ), Renata da Silva Souza; and president of the National Health Council (CNS), Fernando Pigatto. The session was recorded and is available on the VideoSaúde YouTube channel.

Online voting
The votes began to be counted right after the electronic ballots were closed, at 17:01 (Brasília time) on March 24, at the auditorium of the Center for Documentation of History of Health (CDHS/COC), at the Manguinhos campus, in Rio de Janeiro. Since 2020 the Fiocruz presidential election is held online, using an electronic system widely tested by other institutions and by Fiocruz itself.

The Electoral Commission relies on the support of the Technical Group for Advisory on Information Technology (GTATI), whose goal is to provide support to the electoral process in the area of information safety and data network infrastructure. To increase transparency and ensure the integrity of the electoral process, Fiocruz invites external audits. This year, the audit is in charge of three professionals of the Superintendence of Information Technology of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF): Felipe Pimenta Pinheiro, Marcos Tadeu von Lutzow Vidal and Yago de Rezende Dos Santos.

The participative and democratic administration of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation has its main expression in the choice of its president through direct vote by all active employees of the institution. Since 1992 the Presidency of the Republic has evaluated the final result with the nomination of the elected candidate or of the candidate with most votes by the Fiocruz community, when a triple list is formed.

Source: Fiocruz News Agency (AFN).