The Brazilian Social Democracy Party is a political party in Brazil. It is sometimes recognized as the Brazilian Social Democratic Party or even the Party of Brazilian Social Democrats. In this blog we are going to tell you about Brazilian Social Democracy Political Party, so read this blog carefully to get the complete information.
From 2003 through 2016, the PSDB was the principal opposition party to the Workers’ Party (PT) governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, as the strongest party in the National Congress.
The Rival Parties: PSDB and PT
The PSDB and the PT have been bitter competitors in modern Brazilian politics since the mid-1990s, when they were born together as part of the social democratic resistance to the military dictatorship from the late 1970s to the early 1980s.
At all levels of government, both parties forbid any type of coalition or public cooperation with each other. The PSDB’s mascot is a blue and yellow toucan, and party members are known as tucanos because of it. Mário Covas, Geraldo Alckmin, Tasso Jereissati, Aécio Neves, Former Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Franco Montoro, Aloysio Nunes, Yeda Crusius, João Dória, e José Serra são alguns dos “well-known” tucanos.
History of Brazilian Social Democracy Party
With the military dictatorship on the verge of falling apart in the early 1980s, a group of left-wing professionals banded together to form a leftist party. Some of them tried to cooperate with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s labour movement, but the group broke over ideological differences.
The Workers’ Party (PT) was founded by a group of democratic socialists and Trotskyists who joined the labour movement, whereas the social democrats stayed in the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) & later formed the Brazilian Social Democracy Party.
The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) was founded on June 25, 1988, by supporters of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), which was linked to the European social democratic movement. Its manifesto preached “democracy as a fundamental principle” and “social justice.”
The Last President of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party
The party tried to bring together political groupings as disparate as democratic socialists, social liberals, Christian democrats, and democratic socialists when it was founded. The time surrounding the formation of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party was a watershed point in Brazilian politics.
Tancredo Neves, the very last President not directly elected by the people since the dictatorship began, died on April 21, 1985, in front of the Brazilian people.
A National Constitutional Assembly was formed in 1988 as a result of the establishment of new parties, notably the PSDB. It produced the present democratic constitution.
History and Foundation of the PMDB
A considerable number of the PSDB’s founding members came from the so-called “historic PMDB,” which was and continues to be a vast party with many internal issues.
The PSDB’s founders were disappointed with the National Constitutional Assembly’s results and decided to form a political party to represent any need for a national political rebirth.
The new party was founded “away from the official perks, but near to the throbbing of the streets,” according to their manifesto (taken from a speech by party leader Franco Montoro). José Serra, Mário Covas, André Franco Montoro, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Aécio Neves, e Geraldo Alckmin were among the group’s founders.
In a country where, like in most of the Americas, two constitutional referendums, held in 1963 and 1993, showed a strong support for a presidential style of government, the PSDB stands nearly alone in its manifesto preference for a parliamentarian governmental system.
However, since voters rejected parliamentarism in 1993, and despite the fact that PSDB member Cardoso was elected President the following year, the party has done nothing to advance the cause of a parliamentary system in recent years.
Brazil’s Most Powerful Political Party
The PSDB is one of Brazil’s most powerful and influential political parties. Although the party is influenced by neoliberalism, its official programme declares that its policies are social democratic & commonly affiliated with the Third Way movement.
The party “reject populism & autocracy, and both fundamentalist neoliberalism and outmoded national-statism,” according to its platform.
The PSDB is not a member of the Socialist International, which brings together social democratic parties from throughout the world (the Brazilian member of the Socialist International is the Democratic Labour Party, PDT).
The party has never had or had any ties to trade union movements, though it did endorse a central union, the Social-Democracia Sindical (SDS), which has since decided to merge with the Central Autônoma dos Trabalhadores (CAT) as well as the more powerful Central Geral dos Trabalhadores (CGT) to form the Union Geral dos Trabalhadores (UGT).
However, in comparison to even much smaller parties such as the PDT or the Communist Party of Brazil, or to the tucanos’ own power in society at large, their impact on the unions has always been underwhelming.
2018 Presidential Election
After supporting Geraldo Alckmin’s candidacy in the 2018 presidential campaign, he was defeated in the first round with 4.8 percent of the vote.
However, some of the party’s leaders backed much further applicant Jair Bolsonaro in the second session, toward whom most of the party’s conventional electorate had already switched, while former Sao Paulo Governor Alberto Goldman endorsed Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad instead.
Ideology of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party
Although the PSDB calls itself a centrist party, some on the left disagree, particularly after President Fernando Henrique Cardoso accepted Third Way politics.
From the beginning, detractors have labeled the party as neoliberal. One of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party‘s founders, Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, left the party for ideological concerns, alleging “that the party had taken a severe turn to the right.”
Controversies Related to The Brazilian Party
- Ranking of corruption
The Movement to Combat Electoral Corruption published a rating on October 4, 2007, listing the political parties with the highest proportion of elected officials who have been implicated in corruption since 2000, based on information provided by the Superior Electoral Court. With 58 cases, the PSDB ranked third on the list, just after the Democrats and the PMDB.
The Brazilian electoral commission regarded the PSDB as its “dirtiest” rival. However, a 2016 academic study found that the party had benefited from the Brazilian media’s complacency, which had barely covered these cases.
The PSDB is the party with the most barred candidates (56 party members), out of 317 Brazilian politicians who were prohibited from competing in elections under the Clean Record Act, according to an analysis published on September 8, 2012.
- A Privataria Tucana
Documents allegedly demonstrating irregularities in privatizations that allegedly took place under the administration of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso were highlighted in the 2011 book A Privataria Tucana, authored by journalist Amaury Ribeiro Jr. About 140 pages of photocopied documents are included to support the assertion that José Serra, Minister of Planning under President Cardoso and later Minister of Health, received bribes from businessmen who took part in the Brazilian privatization process, held companies in tax havens, and moved millions of dollars between 1993 and 2003.
Prominent Members and Former Members of the Brazilian Social Democracy Political Party
- President and Candidates
Former President of Brazil- Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Current senator for São Paulo and Former Minister of Health, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and presidential candidate for 2002 and 2010- José Serra
Former party president and current federal deputy for Minas Gerais and former senator for Minas Gerais and presidential candidate for 2014- Aécio Neves
Former governor of São Paulo and Former presidential candidate for 2022- João Doria
Former governor of São Paulo and presidential candidate for 2006 and 2018 and former member- Geraldo Alckmin
- Governors and Senators
The current governor of Rio Grande do Sul- Eduardo Leite
The current governor of Pernambuco- Raquel Lyra
The current governor of Mato Grosso do Sul- Eduardo Riedel
Former party president and current senator for Ceara- Tasso Jereissati
Current senator for Amazonas- Plínio Valério
Current senator for the Federal District- Izalci Lucas
Current senator for São Paulo and candidate for vice president in 2022 and former member- Mara Gabrilli
Current senator for Sergipe- Alessandro Vieira
Current Senator for São Paulo- José Serra
Former governor of Mato Grosso do Sul- Reinaldo Azambuja
Former governor of Rio Grande do Sul- Ranolfo Vieira Júnior
Former governor of São Paulo- Rodrigo Garcia
Current vice governor of Amazonas- Carlos Almeida
Current vice governor of Minas Gerais- Paulo Brant
- Mayors and Deputies
Current federal deputy for Bahia and party floor leader at the Chamber of Deputies- Adolfo Viana
Current federal deputy for Santa Catarina and third secretary of the Chamber of Deputies- Geovania de Sá
Current federal deputy for Minas Gerais and chairman of the Committee for External Relations and National Defence- Aécio Neves
The current mayor of Natal- Álvaro Dias
The current mayor of Palmas- Cinthia Ribeiro
The current mayor of Porto Velho- Hildon Chaves
The current vice mayor of Porto Velho- Maurício Carvalho
