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Workers' Party (Brazil)

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Template:Infobox Brazilian Political Party The Partido dos Trabalhadores (Portuguese for Workers' Party) is a left-wing political party in Brazil. It was officially founded by a group of intellectuals and workers in February, 10, 1980 at Colégio Sion (Sion High School) in São Paulo. Brazil's current president, Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was one of its founders, and the most famous member of the party at the present time. Among others present at its founding were Jacó Bittar, Henrique Santillo, Henos Amorina, Wagner Benevides, José Cicote, Paulo Skromov, Olívio Dutra, Édson Khair, Manuel da Conceição, Arnóbio Vieira da Silva, Lourin Martinho dos Santos, Mário Pedrosa, Moacir Gadoti and Apolônio de Carvalho.

The PT was legally recognized as a political party by Brazilian Electoral Superior Court on February 11, 1982.

The color of the party is red and its symbol is a red star with the label "PT" inside it. The flag is red with a white star with the label "PT" in red.

There are about thirty tendencies within the PT, ranging from the center-left group that Lula is a part of to Marxists and Christian socialists. Its members are known as petistas, from the Portuguese acronym "PT". The party is recognized by some people as one of the most important left-wing parties of Latin America.

Some well known members of the Worker's Party are: Tarso Genro, José Genoino (former Party President), Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil's President), Luiz Gushiken, Antônio Palocci Filho, Marta Suplicy, Eduardo Suplicy, Olívio Dutra, Aloízio Mercadante and Frei Betto.

Recent history

After 1990 the Worker's Party has grown in popularity, winning elections in many important cities, like São Paulo and Porto Alegre(1988,1992, 1996 and 2000), and states like Rio Grande do Sul(1998). This winning streak culminated with the victory of its presidential candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002, who succeeded President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of PSDB.

The Radical Wing

The relative changes in the political orientation of his party (PT), the Government and Lula himself were well received by the majority of the population, but as a historically more radical party, PT has been suffering from internal struggles with members that followed the old standards. These struggles are often demonstrated publicly and had their climax in December 2003, when several members of the party were expelled for not following political decisions. Among these members were congressman João Batista Oliveira de Araujo, known as Babá and senator Heloísa Helena, who formed the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (P-SOL) in June 2004.

In a recent move by the radical wing of the Party, sometimes called the rebels by the media, 112 members announced they were abandoning PT in the World Social Forum, in Porto Alegre, on January 30 2005. [1] They also published a manifest entitled Manifest of the Rupture that states that PT is no longer an instrument of social transformation, but only an instrument of the status quo, continuing with references to the IMF and other economic and social issues.

2005 crisis

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In July of 2005, the party suffered from a sequence of corruption accusations, started by a deputy of PTB, Roberto Jefferson. Serious evidence for slush funding and bribes-for-votes has been presented, dragging PT to the most serious crisis in its history - known as the Mensalão Scandal. A formal investigation was started by the Congress and the Federal Police. Allegations involve among other people, secretary-general (Silvio Pereira) and the treasurer of the party (Delúbio Soares - who eventually confessed to have run a major slush fund operation.

José Dirceu, Lula da Silva's chief of staff, was forced to resign and return to the Chamber of Deputies. After around 2 weeks, José Genoino also resigned as president of the party and was replaced by Tarso Genro, former mayor of Porto Alegre.

The party lost popularity among supporters and the general public. It is not yet clear if the president is personally involved. The impeachment of President Lula started to be understood as a possibility, but this discussion lost strength.

Many party members defected as a result of the crisis. Most of them went to P-SOL.

Books about the Workers' Party - PT

  • Harnecker, Martha - "O sonho era possível"; São Paulo, Casa das Américas, 1994.
  • Pedrosa, Mário - "Sobre o PT"; São Paulo, CHED Editorial, 1980.
  • Rosenfield, Denis L. - "O PT na Encruzilhada", 2000.
  • Paulo Moura - "PT - Comunismo ou Social-Democracia?".
  • Dagoberto Lima Godoy -"Neocomunismo no Brasil"
  • Percival Puggina - "Crônicas contra o totalitarismo"
  • José Hildebrando Dacanal -"A nova classe no poder"
  • Antônio Hohlfeldt - "O fascínio da estrela".
  • Adolpho João de Paula Couto - "A face oculta da estrela".
  • José Antônio Giusti Tavares, Fernando Schüller, Ronaldo Moreira Brum e Valério Rohden - "Totalitarismo tardio - o caso do PT"
  • A. J. Paula Couto - "O PT em pílulas".
  • Demier, Felipe - "As Transformações do Pt e os Rumos da Esquerda no Brasil".
  • Singer, André - "O PT - Folha Explica".
  • Keck, Margaret E. - "The Workers' Party and Democratization in Brazil".
  • Baiocchi, Gianpaolo - "Radicals in Power: The Workers' Party and Experiments in Urban Democracy in Brazil".
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