Workers' Party (Brazil)
From Freepedia
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. Among other people were present: Jacó Bittar, Henrique Santillo, Henos Amorina, Wagner Benevides, José Cicote, Paulo Skromov, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Olívio Dutra, Édson Khair, Manuel da Conceição, Arnóbio Vieira da Silva, Lourin Martinho dos Santos, Mário Pedrosa, Moacir Gadoti, Apolônio de Carvalho. Brazil's current president, Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is one of its founders, and the most famous member of the party at the present time.
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 parties of Latin America.
Some well known members of the Worker's Party are: Tarso Genro (Party President), 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, Frei Betto, etc.
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Recent history
Image:TarsoGenro.jpg After 1990 the Worker's Party has grown in popularity, winning elections in many important cities, like São Paulo and Porto Alegre, and states like Rio Grande do Sul. The culmination point was the victory of its President candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002, succeeding 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 are 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
In July of 2005, the party suffered from a sequence of corruption accusations, started by a deputy of PTB, Roberto Jefferson. Serious evidence has been presented, which headed PT to the most serious crisis in its history - known as Scandal of Mensalão. A formal investigation was started by the Congress. Accusations involved among other people, the secretary (Silvio Pereira) and the treasurer of the party (Delúbio Soares). The first left the party and the second lost its post.
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 general public. Above all, it is not clear if the president is personally involved or not. And 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, founded in 2003 by, among others, parliamentaries expelled from PT.
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".
External links
- Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (Brazilian Electoral Superior Court)
- Partido dos Trabalhadores(Workers' Party) official webpage, in Portuguese
- Perseu Abramo Foundation (FPA)
- Foro de São Paulo. Organization guided by PT.
- Al-Jazeera: Investigation shake Brazilian party
- Lula's lament: article on PT corruption scandal
Radical Wing
- Senator Heloísa Helena's homepage
- Congressman Babá's homepage
- Article about expulsion of members from the party
