Democratic Labour Party (Brazil)
Democratic Labour Party Partido Democrático Trabalhista | |
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| President | Carlos Lupi |
| Founded | 17 June 1979 (1979-06-17) |
| Headquarters | Rua Sete de Setembro, 141, 4º andar , Centro, Rio de Janeiro |
| Membership | 1,250,777[1] |
| Ideology | Social democracy[2] Labourism[2] Populism[citation needed] Left-wing nationalism[citation needed] |
| Political position | Centre-left[2] |
| International affiliation | Socialist International, Foro de São Paulo |
| Colours | Red, White, Blue |
| TSE Identification Number | 12 |
| Seats in the Chamber of Deputies | 19 / 513 |
| Seats in the Senate | 3 / 81 |
| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
| www.pdt.org.br | |
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The Democratic Labour Party (Portuguese: Partido Democrático Trabalhista, PDT) is a social democratic political party in Brazil.
It was founded in 1979 by left-wing leader Leonel Brizola as an attempt to reorganize the Brazilian leftist forces during the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Many of its members, including Brizola, had been active in the Brazilian Labour Party prior to the 1964 coup. Brizola originally wanted to reclaim the PTB name for his party, but the government awarded it to a more moderate grouping led by Ivete Vargas.
The PDT joined the Socialist International in 1986. It was the major left-wing party in Brazil until the rise of the Workers' Party.
The party is organized in state and municipal directories and also in cooperational social movements, such as the Black Movement, the Labour Woman Association, the Labour Syndicate Union, the Socialist Youth and the Green Labour Movement. Its national directory is composed of over 250 members, while its national executive is composed of 21 members.
The cooperational social movements have their own statutes and nationwide organization.
The Socialist Youth, founded in 1981, was originally called Labour Youth. Its name had been changed twice: in 1984, to Socialist Labour Youth, and then in 1985 to Socialist Youth. The intention was to support the group that defended the participation of the party in the Socialist International as well as the change of the party's name to Socialist Party. The latter never happened.
The best result of the party in a presidential election was reached by historical leader Brizola, with 17% of the votes in the first round of the 1989 presidential elections. However, Brizola lost to rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by a margin of 0.5%, stopping him from facing the right-wing candidate, Fernando Collor de Mello, in the runoff.
In the 2002 legislative elections, the party won 21 out of the 513 seats of the Chamber of Deputies and 5 out of the 81 seats of the Senate. Its candidate also won the gubernatorial election in Amapá. Afterwards, it went into opposition to the federal government led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In the local elections of October 2004, the party elected 300 mayors, 3252 city councilors, earning 5.5 million votes.
After the political crisis involving the government of Lula, the PDT has received the affiliation of several left-wing leaders from the president's party, the Workers' Party (PT), that disagree with the government policies, including the former Minister of Education, Cristovam Buarque. Cristovam faced president Lula in the first round of the 2006 National Elections, reaching 4th place (with 2.538.834 or 2.64% of the votes). At the legislative elections of October 1, 2006, the party experienced slight gains, winning 24 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The PDT held onto the governorship of Amapá, and won a surprising victory in the gubernatorial election in Maranhão, which however was overturned due to electoral irregularities in 2009. At the 2010 elections, the PDT made gains in Parliament, winning 28 representatives, and it will have 4 Senate seats. It did not win any governorships, however, and only made it to one gubernatorial runoff, in Alagoas.
The PDT was the first party of president Dilma Rousseff (now in the PT). Although the PDT voted against the impeachment of Rousseff, six deputies voted in favor, resulting in the suspension of five deputies and the expulsion of the sixth, Giovani Cherini.[3]
Contents
1 Ideology
2 Important party leaders
3 References
4 External links
Ideology
Unlike PT, which always rejected any adherence for any brand of leftism, PDT, since its inception, had a clear ideological trend of labourist Social democracy combined with nationalism and populism.
Despite not being an anti-communist, Brizola never was a Marxist and fight against communist influence over his party, unlike PT, which always had a Strong Marxist influence.
Apart from a small truce in 1998, PT and PDT had a rivalry for more than 20 years for the leadership of Brazilian left. Brizola had a public distate for Lula personality, which he considered extreme arrogant, authoritarian and personalistic. PDT eventually lost the battle and turned itself in a ally of PT in a national level. The alliance, however, was always uneasy; The party always had a strong dissident wing, with the leadership of former Brasilia governor, former Petista and senator for the Federal District Cristovam Buarque. This internal movements was always ousted and disenfranchised by the national chairman of the party, Carlos Lupi, which was always a loyalist of the Government of PT. However, many dissidents left PDT for anothers party, Like PSB, PPS, PSDB and PSOL
With the arrival of Ciro Gomes and the crisis of PT, PDT made a move to reconquest the leadership of the left in the post-2014 elections. The move was partially successful: PDT made some gains in the municipal elections of 2016 and conquered more mayoralities than any left-wing party apart PSB. Ciro Gomes, however, didn't get a great popular support for his presidential bid, much because the presence of Lula inibits another leftists candidacies to grow in popular support.
Important party leaders
Leonel Brizola (1922–2004), the brother-in-law of President João Goulart, Brizola formed the Democratic Labour Party in 1979 in an attempt to reorganize the left-wing of the country after the last military sponsored President João Figueiredo brought an end to the political persecution of the left.
Darcy Ribeiro, an anthropologist, one of the founders of the University of Brasília.
Jackson Lago, former mayor of São Luís and governor of Maranhão.
Ciro Gomes, lawyer and politician, former governor of Ceará.
References
^ http://inter04.tse.jus.br/ords/dwtse/f?p=2001:104:::NO:::
^ abc Mainwaring, Scott P. (1999), Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil, Stanford University Press, p. 91
^ http://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/noticias/pdt-expulsa-deputado-e-suspende-outros-cinco-que-votaram-pelo-impeachment/
External links
- Official website
- PDT's Socialist Youth website
- Socialist International
| Preceded by 11 - PP | Numbers of Brazilian Official Political Parties 12 - DLP (PDT) | Succeeded by 13 - WP (PT) |
Political parties in Brazil  | |
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| Political parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil (513 seats) |
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| Political parties represented in the Senate of Brazil (81 seats) |
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| Political parties not represented in the National Congress of Brazil |
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