Democratic Labour Party (Brazil)


The Democratic Labour Party is a social democratic and democratic socialist political party in Brazil.

Organization

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 organisation.

Ideology

The PDT combines a pro-labour and social-democratic orientation with nationalism and elements of democratic socialism.
Apart from a small truce in 1998, the PT and PDT had a rivalry for more than 20 years for the leadership of Brazilian left. The PDT eventually lost the battle and became an ally of the PT on the national level. The alliance, however, was always uneasy; the party always had a strong dissident wing led by the former Federal District governor, former petista and senator for the Federal District Cristovam Buarque. This internal movement was always ousted and disenfranchised by the national chairman of the party, Carlos Lupi, who was always loyal to the PT government. However, many dissidents left the PDT for other parties, such as the PSB, PPS, PSDB or PSOL.
With the arrival of Ciro Gomes and the crisis within the PT, PDT sought to regain the leadership of the left in the post-2014 elections. The move was partially successful: the PDT made significant gains in the municipal elections of 2016 and won more mayoral races than any party of the left apart from the PSB, while PT's own seats fell by 60%. Ciro Gomes, despite having a comparatively much smaller campaign and multiple deals on PT's part to sway other parties, mainly PSB, away from PDT, managed to finish in third place. In the runoff, Fernando Haddad, supported by former President Lula, then in jail, expected support from Ciro but this was ignored, and PDT instead assumed a position of neutrality. In 2019, PDT kept struggling with PT for leadership of the left. It expects to make significant gains in 2020 as it forms new alliances with dissatisfied centre-left and centrist parties.

History

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 in 1994.
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, 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. 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. 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.
In 2018, the party announced Ciro Gomes, former Minister of Finance and governor from the state of Ceará, to run for the presidency, receiving 12.47% of the votes in the first round, the second highest by a PDT candidate, second only to Leonel Brizola's bid, in 1989. Despite being against the winner of the first round, and the eventual president elected, Jair Bolsonaro, he did not formally endorse Fernando Haddad.

Electoral results

Presidential elections

Important party leaders