Social Christian Party (Brazil)


The Social Christian Party is a Christian-conservative political party in Brazil.
In the 2018 election, the party elected 2 Governors, 1 Senator, 9 Federal Deputies and 30 State Deputies.

History

The party was founded in 1985, as a Christian democratic party. The party supported Fernando Collor de Mello in the presidential election of 1989, and in 1990, the party won first place in the state election for Alagoas, the home state of then-President Collor. However, from 1994, the party declined: its candidates repeatedly lost votes, surpassing only those from far-left parties, who originated from rebel wings of the Workers Party without popular support. The PSC did not elect more than 3 representatives in the three subsequent elections.
Incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro is a former member of the party.
He joined the party in March 2016 to run for president in 2018. With that analysts pointed out that the party was in an increasingly right-wing movement; starting as a centre-right Christian democratic party, then adopting more conservative agenda and towards a nationalist platform.
However, Bolsonaro disagreed with Pastor Everaldo regarding the municipal elections alliance of PSC within PCdoB in Maranhão and joined the PSL.

Ideology

"Social Christian" comes from the supporters' belief that Christianity, more than a religion, is a state of mind that does not segregates and does not exclude, besides serving as a basis for people to make decisions in a rational way - hence, it is declared Pro-Life and Pro-Family.
The party is often associated with conservative evangelical Protestantism because the leadership of the Pastor Everaldo Pereira, a national leader of Assemblies of God in Brazil, over the party. Despite this, the party does not have any affiliation with any church and many of the officials elected by the party, like the incumbents Governor and Vice Governor of Rio de Janeiro Wilson Witzel and Claudio Castro being practising Catholics, with the latter being a well-known Catholic music singer and activist.
The party is a vocal supporter of social conservatism, harshly opposing abortion, LGBT rights, gender theory and the legalization of marijuana. On economics, the party is more moderate, supporting a free-market system with privatization of many of the Brazilian government-owned companies like Petrobrás with an extensive social safety net.
The party adopted a hard-line stance against organized crime and drug trafficking in the governorship of Rio de Janeiro. Under Witzel's government, the number of police operations substantially grew, and the number of members of police which died on-duty has fallen, together with the number of manslaughters, shootings and robberies in the state of Rio de Janeiro, although civilian and criminal deaths in police-related incidents has increased. Nevertheless, Witzel has been criticized by the high number of civilian victims of the confrontational politics which he implemented, which includes poor children and elders.
Openly opposed to Marxism, it is historically anti-communist.

Electoral results

At the legislative elections of 6 October 2002, the party won 1 out of 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and no seats in the Senate. At the legislative elections of 1 October 2006, the party won 9 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. At the legislative elections of 3 October 2010, the party won 17 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 1 seat in the Senate. At the legislative elections of 5 October 2014, the party won 13 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 1 seat in the Senate. At the legislative elections of 7 October 2014, the party won 9 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 1 seat in the Senate.

Presidential elections

YearCandidateVotes%
1989No candidate, endorsed Fernando Collor de Mellon/an/a
1994Hernani Fortuna238,2570.40%
1998Sergio Bueno124,5460.20%
2002No candidate, endorsed Anthony Garotinhon/an/a
2010No candidate, endorsed Dilma Rousseffn/an/a
2014Pastor Everaldo780,5130.75%
2018No candidate, endorsed Alvaro Diasn/an/a