The
original PTB was a center-left
labourist party with strong support from
trade unions founded in 1945 by former Brazilian president
Getúlio Vargas, who formerly presided the country from 1930 to 1945. After Vargas' suicide in 1954, PTB's main figures became
Leonel Brizola and
João Goulart, who was elected
vice-president in 1960 — becoming president after the resignation of
Jânio Quadros — until his deposition after the
1964 coup d'état. After that PTB, along with every other Brazilian party, was banned. In 1979, the military dictatorship that had dismantled the historical PTB decided to revoke its legislation which enforced a two-party state. Soon thereafter, the
social-democratic wing of the original PTB, led by Leonel Brizola, attempted to recreate the party, but the military government instead awarded the name to a group led by
Ivete Vargas, niece of
Getúlio Vargas, who became the president of the party. Many of her group were politicians who did not follow PTB's historical labourist ideology, conservatives and even former oppositors of the party. Leonel Brizola instead led his faction to found the
Democratic Labour Party (PDT). This all but ensured that the PTB would abandon
leftist politics, ultimately embracing centrist or slightly right-leaning politics. At the
legislative elections of October 6, 2002, the party won 26 out of 513 seats in the
Chamber of Deputies and 3 out of 81 seats in the Senate. In the 1989, a small dissident faction of moderate social democrats and populists abandoned the PTB and founded the
Labour Party of Brazil (PTdoB), which was renamed to
Avante in 2017. Before the
2010 presidential election, PTB participated in the coalition government of former
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and did not field presidential candidates. The party, however, did not support Lula's candidate to succeed him,
Dilma Rousseff (herself a former historical PTB/PDT member), as it embarked on
PSDB José Serra's failed campaign for president. Since 2018 with the rise of
conservatism and
Bolsonarism in Brazil (a phenomenon known as the '
conservative wave'), the party started a strong turn to right-wing politics, declaring itself an openly conservative party, supporting the government of
Jair Bolsonaro and his positions. Senator
Armando Monteiro left the party in 2021, calling it a "Bolsonarist cult". In 2020, Jair Bolsonaro left his original party
Social Liberal Party (PSL) and failed to form his own
Alliance for Brazil, PTB was one of the parties that had extensive negotiations for affiliating him, which helped as Bolsonaro was previously a PTB member from 2003 to 2005, but the negotiations ended up failing. Kelmon was accused of beginning an "auxiliary line" for Jair Bolsonaro, making a campaign for Bolsonaro and not himself, and at debates exclusively attacking Bolsonaro's opponents and praising his presidency. When Jefferson previously had announced he would launch his candidacy, he announced that it would be to support the campaign of Jair Bolsonaro. After the 2022 general elections, PTB elected only one federal deputy, failing to break through the
electoral threshold and thus cutting access to
party subsidies and free advertisement on television. On October, the PTB assembly voted to merge with right-wing conservative party
Patriota in order to form a party tentatively titled
Mais Brasil ("More Brazil"). The merger was approved by the
Superior Electoral Court on 9 November 2023 and the party is now called the
Democratic Renewal Party. == Notable members ==