LATIN AMERICA : Monarchy vs. Republic: Brazil Gets to Choose : Plebiscite gives citizens rare opportunity to pick nation’s form of government.

Choose your form of government:

( ) Monarchy

( ) Republic

Now, choose your system of government:

( ) Parliamentary

( ) Presidential

Those are the rare but real options Brazilian voters will find on their ballots in an April 21 plebiscite.

Like other Latin American countries, Brazil now has a presidential system.

But it has had prime ministers and even kings in the past, and depending on the results of the plebiscite, it could have them again.

A freewheeling, sometimes fierce campaign has been going full blast in the media since the beginning of March; for a total of 60 minutes at different times each day, it’s all there is on television throughout the country.

Presidentialists deride Brazil’s short and ill-fated experience with a parliamentary system in 1962-1963. “In 16 months of parliamentarianism, Brazil changed governments three times,” one TV ad said. “Confusion spread, popular revolt took over the streets and the country was swept by strikes and protests.”

Parliamentarians point to last year’s government corruption scandal, which resulted in the impeachment and resignation of President Fernando Collor de Mello, as proof that the presidential system hurts Brazil. “In presidentialism, the president has total power and does what he wants,” another ad said. “Too much power in the hands of one man and too much money in the hands of one man--that’s why it doesn’t work.”

Monarchists claim the success of such countries as Japan, Sweden and Spain is based on having a royal head of state. “The return of the king of Spain made the country plant its flag in the era of modernity,” another ad said. “Vote for the king.”

After independence from Portugal in 1822, Brazil was ruled by Emperor Pedro I, then Pedro II. A military coup in 1889 ushered in the republic and the presidential form of government.

If the monarchists win April 21, it presumably would be up to the Congress to pick a king from the royal house of Braganca.

One leading contender, Pedro Gastao de Orleans e Braganca, is 80 years old and could be considered too elderly to crown. Another, Luiz Gastao de Orleans e Braganca, is 54 but would likely be ruled out because he belongs to Tradition, Family and Property, an ultra-rightist group.

“A king cannot belong to an extremist organization,” said Gastao Reis, who heads the Parliamentary Monarchy Movement in Rio de Janeiro.

There are plenty of other Braganca princes and princesses in line for the throne, but the heir issue is probably academic. Although the monarchists may receive a sizable vote because of disillusionment with government, hardly anyone outside their own movement expects them to win.

The plebiscite is being held because, when Congress drafted Brazil’s 1988 constitution, it was deeply split on whether the form of government should be parliamentary or presidential. The solution was to let the voters decide later. And a small monarchist group in the Congress wangled a spot on the ballot for their cause.

Amaury de Souza, a political scientist who advocates the parliamentary system, said it would permit Brazil to resolve its frequent political impasses with European-style confidence-votes and snap elections rather than paralyzing the government for long periods.

De Souza said the parliamentarians may well win the plebiscite. But Helio Jaguaribe, head of the Rio-based Institute for Political and Social Studies and also an advocate of the parliamentary system, predicted that the presidentalists will win.

If the parliamentarians win, Jaguaribe said, their opponents in Congress could prevent passage of laws needed to make the system workable. Voters will not risk such a “disaster,” he said. “My forecast is that parliamentarianism will be severely defeated.”