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Democratic Labour Party Partido Democrático Trabalhista | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President | Carlos Lupi |
| Founder | Leonel Brizola |
| Founded | 17 June 1979; 46 years ago (1979-06-17) |
| Split from | Brazilian Democratic Movement |
| Preceded by | Brazilian Labour Party |
| Headquarters | Rua Sete de Setembro, 141, 4º andar, Centro,Rio de Janeiro |
| Think tank | Fundação Leonel Brizola-Alberto Pasqualini |
| Youth wing | Juventude Socialista |
| Women's wing | Ação da Mulher Trabalhista |
| LGBT wing | PDT Diversidade |
| Labour wing | Central dos Sindicatos Brasileiros |
| Black wing | PDT Negro |
| Membership(2023) | 1,106,481[1] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-left[8] Historical: Left-wing[9] |
| Regional affiliation | São Paulo Forum |
| Continental affiliation | COPPPAL |
| International affiliation | Socialist International |
| Colours | Red White Blue Green Yellow |
| TSE Identification Number | 12 |
| Federal Senate | 3 / 81 |
| Chamber of Deputies | 17 / 513 |
| Governorships | 1 / 27 |
| State Assemblies | 52 / 1,060 |
| Mayors | 314 / 5,568 |
| City Councillors | 3,441 / 56,810 |
| Mercosur Parliament | 1 / 55 |
| Election symbol | |
.png) | |
| Party flag | |
 | |
| Website | |
| pdt | |
TheDemocratic Labour Party (Portuguese:Partido Democrático Trabalhista, PDT) is acenter-left[10]political party in Brazil. It defendslaborist,democratic socialist,social-democratic andnationalist ideologies.[11]
The Democratic Labour Party (PDT) was founded in 1979 during theredemocratization in Brazil at the end of theBrazilian military dictatorship byLeonel Brizola as a successor of theoriginal Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), continuing the legacy ofJoão Goulart andGetúlio Vargas, while also incorporating and syncretizing elements of European social-democracy he encountered during his exile.[12] However, Brizola was unable to use the nameBrazilian Labour Party (PTB), as the military government awarded it toa rival group led byIvete Vargas, and he established the PDT instead, officially registered in 1980.[13] After Brizola's death in 2004, the party has been led byCarlos Lupi.Ciro Gomes joined the party in 2015, becoming its main national figure and presidential candidate in2018 and2022, leaving the party in 2025.[14]
It was the major left-wing party in Brazil until the rise of theWorkers' Party (PT) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since then, the two parties have maintained a complex and often contentious relationship, alternating between cooperation and rivalry as both sought leadership of the Brazilian left. The PDT has supported PT-led governments at times but has also positioned itself as an independent centre-left alternative.[15] At the2006,2018 and2022 elections the party disputed the presidency, particularly underCiro Gomes, promoting a nationalist and developmentalist platform distinct from that of the PT. The party also has opposed theImpeachment of Dilma Rousseff, and the governments ofMichel Temer andJair Bolsonaro.[16][17]
The party joined theSocialist International in 1986, and uses thefist and rose as its symbol.[18] ItsTSE Identification Number is 12, and members and sympathizers are called "pedetistas".
The Democratic Labour Party (PDT) was founded in 1979 by left-wing leaderLeonel Brizola as an attempt to reorganise the Brazilian left-wing forces during the end of theBrazilian military dictatorship. Many of its members, including Brizola, had been active in the historicalBrazilian Labour Party prior to the1964 coup, which drove into exile or assassinated a number of its prominent members including ousted PresidentJoão Goulart. Returning from exile inUruguay, Brizola originally wanted to reclaim the PTB name for his party, but the military government awarded it toa more moderate grouping led byIvete Vargas,Getúlio Vargas's great-niece,[19] leading to PDT being formed by a large majority of historical PTB members a week later. The PDT joined theSocialist International as a consultative member in 1986 and a full member in 1989.
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 to Socialist Youth in 1985. 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, partly due to the founding of theBrazilian Socialist Party.
PDT enjoyed wide, but regionalized electoral success in the 1980s and 1990s, with Brizola winning the governorship of theRio de Janeiro state, becoming the first and only Brazilian to have governed two different states, previously his nativeRio Grande do Sul before the coup and while leading acivil resistance campaign which had successfully delayedan earlier coup attempt in 1962.[20] Meanwhile, it also electedAlceu Collares for the latter's governorship, the first Black Brazilian governor in history.
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 theright-wing candidate,Fernando Collor de Mello, in the runoff. Brizola lost two more additional bids in1994, and1998, as Lula's running mate. In2002 it launchedCiro Gomes, but later supported Lula in the runoffs as he won in his fourth presidential attempt.
In the2002 legislative elections, the party won 21 out of the 513 seats of the Chamber of Deputies and five out of the 81 seats of the Senate. Its candidate also won the gubernatorial election inAmapá. Differences with PT, which had accumulated over the 90s as they disputed for similar voter bases, led to an early breakway from the Lula administration, and PDT entered the opposition.
In the localelections of October 2004, the party elected 300 mayors, 3252 city councilors, earning 5.5 million votes. Brizola's death in June that year resulted in a decade of stagnation.
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, theWorkers' 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 the2006 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 ofAmapá, and won a surprising victory in the gubernatorial election inMaranhão, which however was overturned due to electoral irregularities in 2009. At the2010 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, inAlagoas.
The PDT was the first party of presidentDilma Rousseff (now in PT). Although the PDT voted against theimpeachment of Rousseff, six deputies voted in favor, resulting in the suspension of five deputies and the expulsion of the sixth,Giovani Cherini.[21]
In 2018, the party announcedCiro Gomes, former Minister of Finance (1994-1995) and governor from the state of Ceará (1991-1994), to run for the presidency, receiving 12.47% of the votes in the first round,[22] the second highest by a PDT candidate, second only to Leonel Brizola's bid, in 1989.[23] Despite being against the winner of the first round, and the eventual president elected, Jair Bolsonaro, he did not formally endorse Fernando Haddad.[24] It launched Gomes for president again in 2022.[25]
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The PDT combines a pro-labour,democratic socialistic andsocial-democratic orientation withnationalism. 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 formerFederal District governor, formerpetista and senator for the Federal DistrictCristovam 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 theBrazilian Socialist Party,Popular Socialist Party,Brazilian Social Democracy Party orSocialism and Liberty Party.[26]
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%.[27]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,[27] managed to finish in third place. In the runoff,Fernando Haddad, supported by former PresidentLula, then in jail, expected support from Ciro but this was ignored, and PDT instead assumed a position of neutrality. From 2019 onwards, PDT kept struggling with PT for leadership of the left.[27]
The current logo is thefist and rose, based on the version created byJosé María Cruz Novillo for theSpanish Socialist Workers Party in 1977.[28] In the logo introduced in 2021, the leafs and stem bear the main colours of theflag of Brazil (yellow, blue and green): party president Carlos Lupi stated that this was in response to the political use of the national flag by PresidentJair Bolsonaro.[29]
The party is organised 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 cooperationalsocial movements have their own statutes and nationwide organisation.
| Election | Candidate | Running mate | Coalition | First round | Second round | Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | |||||
| 1989 | Leonel Brizola (PDT) | Fernando Lyra (PDT) | None | 11,168,228 | 16.51% (#3) | - | - | Lost N |
| 1994 | Darcy Ribeiro (PDT) | PDT;PMN | 2,015,836 | 3.19% (#5) | - | - | LostN | |
| 1998 | Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) | Leonel Brizola (PDT) | PT; PDT;PSB;PCdoB;PCB | 21,475,211 | 31.71% (#2) | - | - | LostN |
| 2002 | Ciro Gomes (PPS) | Paulinho da Força (PTB) | PPS;PTB; PDT | 10,170,882 | 11.97% (#4) | - | - | LostN |
| 2006 | Cristovam Buarque (PDT) | Jefferson Péres (PDT) | None | 2,538,844 | 2,64% (#4) | - | - | LostN |
| 2010 | Dilma Rousseff (PT) | Michel Temer (PMDB) | PT;PMDB;PR;PSB; PDT;PCdoB;PSC;PRB;PTC;PTN | 47,651,434 | 46.9% (#1) | 55,752,529 | 56.1% (#1) | Elected Y |
| 2014 | PT;PMDB;PSD;PP;PR; PDT;PRB;PROS;PCdoB | 43,267,668 | 41.6% (#1) | 54,501,118 | 51.6% (#1) | ElectedY | ||
| 2018 | Ciro Gomes (PDT) | Kátia Abreu (PDT) | PDT;AVANTE | 13,334,371 | 12,47% (#3) | - | - | LostN |
| 2022 | Ana Paula Matos (PDT) | None | 3,599,285 | 3,04% (#4) | - | - | LostN | |
| Source:Election Resources: Federal Elections in Brazil – Results Lookup | ||||||||
| Election | Chamber of Deputies | Federal Senate | Role in government | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | ||
| 1982 | 2,394,723 | 5.82% | 23 / 479 | New | 2,496,188 | 5.92% | 1 / 25 | New | Opposition |
| 1986 | 3,075,429 | 6.50% | 24 / 487 |  1 | N/A | N/A | 1 / 49 |  0 | Opposition |
| 1990 | 4,068,078 | 10.04% | 46 / 502 | 22 | N/A | N/A | 1 / 31 | 0 | Opposition |
| 1994 | 3,303,404 | 7.23% | 34 / 513 |  12 | 7,299,932 | 7.62% | 4 / 54 | 3 | Opposition |
| 1998 | 3,776,541 | 5.67% | 25 / 513 | 9 | 3,195,863 | 5.17% | 4 / 81 | 0 | Opposition |
| 2002 | 4,482,538 | 5.12% | 21 / 513 | 4 | 7,932,624 | 5.26% | 5 / 81 | 1 | Coalition |
| 2006 | 4,854,017 | 5.21% | 24 / 513 | 3 | 5,023,041 | 5.95% | 5 / 81 | 0 | Coalition |
| 2010 | 4,854,602 | 5.03% | 28 / 513 | 4 | 2,431,940 | 1.43% | 4 / 81 | 1 | Coalition |
| 2014 | 3,469,168 | 3.57% | 19 / 513 | 9 | 3,609,643 | 4.04% | 8 / 81 | 4 | Coalition(2014–2016) |
| Opposition(2016–2018) | |||||||||
| 2018 | 4,545,846 | 4.62% | 28 / 513 | 9 | 7,737,982 | 4.52% | 5 / 81 | 3 | Opposition |
| 2022 | 3,843,174 | 3.49% | 17 / 513 | 11 | 1,650,222 | 1.62% | 2 / 81 | 3 | Coalition (2023–2025) |
| Independent (2025–present) | |||||||||
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Silva had been a member of PT since 1985, while Rousseff, who had been a founding member of Brizola's social-democratic PDT, joined PT only in 2001.
The next closest candidate, Ciro Gomes of the centre-left Democratic Labour party, is polling at about 7-8 per cent.
(vii) Ideology (party): Despite that some international political science approaches consider party ideology a 'démodé' variable, Brazilian political scientists still vastly use it. Considering the objectives of our study, we classified the parties according to the literature concepts (ZUCCO JR., 2009), under which codes range from left (1) to right (5). Left: PSOL, PSTU, PCO, PCB. Center-left: PT, PCdoB, PDT. Center: PMDB, PSDB, PSB, PPS, PV. Center-right: PSD, PP, PR, PRB, PROS,PSC, PTB, PHS, SD. Right: DEM, PMN, PRP, PRTB, PSDC, PSL, PTdoB, PTC, PTN.
No Brasil, o PDT utiliza a figura na sua identidade visual desde 1979, quando foi criado por Leonel Brizola.
| Preceded by | Numbers of Brazilian Official Political Parties 12 - DLP (PDT) | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
