Although the PSDB declares itself as a
centrist party, some people on the left reject this definition, especially after
Fernando Henrique Cardoso embraced
Third Way politics as president. The party has been seen as
neoliberal by critics from its beginnings.
Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, one of the founders of the PSDB, left the party in 2011 for ideological reasons, claiming "that the party had taken a hard turn to the
right". Since abandoning its more leftist positions, the party has been described as
centrist,
centre-right and right-wing. In its 2009 report about Freedom in the World,
Freedom House defined the opposition coalition (formed by PSDB,
PPS and Democrats) as a "center-right coalition". However, in the 2010 report by the same organization, PSDB was defined as a "center-left" party. Political scientist Glauco Peres notes that the party's move toward conservatism came "in stages," from "the liberal policies and major privatizations of the Cardoso era" to the gradual emergence of a "conservative and religious discourse" in the early 2010s to the failed campaign of the party's right-wing presidential candidate Aecio Neves in 2014. Workers' Party campaign leader Marco Aurélio Garcia criticized declarations made by PSDB president Sérgio Guerra that PSDB is "the real left". He said that "PSDB is not a right wing party, it is the party
of the right wing".
Political alignment The PSDB questions the use of what it considers "outdated political labels" such as "left" and "right". To quote a document drafted by
Fernando Henrique Cardoso's office in 1990: "If left means to be against the existing social order, and right in favor, then social-democracy is without doubt a left current. [...] A social democrat is before anything else someone who has critical sense — who realizes the injustices of society and has no fear to oppose them, even at the risk of being taken as a subversive or a dreamer". The party did not preach
nationalization or
privatization in general ("the consensus is that the state must not be too big or too small, but 'have the size and functions corresponding to the needs of the whole of society'"), yet President Cardoso privatized many large public companies, such as
Companhia Vale do Rio Doce and the national telecommunication system. Many political scientists in Brazil believed that the party in its antagonism with the PT made a move to the right in recent years to fill a void in the Brazilian political spectrum and to put a certain distance between itself and the PT's political views, which also moved more to the right (from the
far-left or left to the
centre-left) in the 1990s in order to be elected.
Voter base The main electoral base of the party is the
State of São Paulo, where the party triumphed in all but three major elections to executive office. The party also has a stronghold in other regions which reject the PT, like Espirito Santo, and in some southern and mid-western states. Unlike the PT, the party has more success in more local elections in the same areas that often vote for the PT in national elections, like the North and Northeastern regions and Minas Gerais. Many leaders of the party come from these regions, like Tasso Jereisatti, Aécio Neves, Teotonio Vilela Filho,
Cassio Cunha Lima, Sergio Guerra and
Simão Jatene. However, the party has not succeeded in transforming this into results in presidential elections, partly because of
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's charisma and partly because of internal infighting. Most rejection of the party comes from the
State of Rio de Janeiro, where the positioning of the party in the Brazilian centre and
centre-right often loses to
PMDB and another parties with less national representation, like the
Brazilian Republican Party, the
Democrats,
Progressistas and the
Social Christian Party. The only victory of the party in Rio occurred in 1994, when the majority of voters in the state supported FHC in the presidential election and the toucans Artur da Tavola and
Marcello Alencar were elected to the senate and state governorship, respectively. PT is also strongly rejected in Rio, however less than PSDB. Despite being considered a centre-left party by their own members, media and by the Brazilian right, the PSDB has little or no appeal to the majority of Brazilian left. The majority of support and bases of
tucanos comes from right-wing sectors like conservative Christians, professionals, the
middle and
upper middle class, farmers, landowners and business owners. Reasons for this support derive from the more moderate rhetoric and ideology of the party compared with the PT, the major economic reforms which the party led in the 1990s, and the major influence of the Democrats in the party. This support is not viewed well inside the "old guard" of the party. Many
tucanos often publicly express their discomfort with the party. Even Cardoso, the most successful figure in the party's history, constantly criticizes such PSDB politicians as Colonel Telhada, a former police officer who was elected a deputy in São Paulo with proposals such as reducing the age of defense of infancy, harsher penalties for criminals and appealing to the evangelical churches, of which Telhada is a member; and João Dória Junior, mayor of São Paulo between 2016 and 2018 and governor of the state of São Paulo since 2019. Dória is often accused of
populism,
demagoguery,
opportunism,
personalism, self-
promotion,
market fundamentalism and aggressive exploitation of anti-
Workers' Party sentiment within the populace. These antagonisms persist between the voter base together with the new members who joined the party based on right-wing sentiment of opposition to the Workers' Party versus the party elite and older members with more left-liberal, progressive, social democratic and pragmatic views, thus an important factor in the often internal rifts between
tucanos. In 2017, a group of new, young federal representatives, nicknamed "blackheads", in reference to their youth (contrasting the gray or bald heads of older and progressive members), began to gain prominence in the party. This wing, made up of members in their 30s or younger, has shown strong opposition to support of the party for the government of President
Michel Temer and far more support for
economic liberalism than the old party members like José Serra and Aloysio Nunes. Blackheads now occupy important positions inside the party and with support of the base and social movements like the
Free Brazil Movement have the capacity to push the party more to the right wing of the Brazilian political spectrum. In the
2018 general election, the party suffered the greatest defeat in its history as
Geraldo Alckmin came in fourth in the presidential election with less than 5% of votes and the party fell to 10th position in number of representatives in the
Chamber of Deputies, with fewer representatives than the Democrats. The key reasons for this failure were the corruption scandals of
Aécio Neves, the party's support for the government of
Michel Temer, the lack of charisma and wrong strategies of Alckmin in the presidential campaign, which chose to attack the
right-wing populist candidate
Jair Bolsonaro from a progressive viewpoint instead of attacking the traditional rival PT, and a continuing domination of old leftist leaders instead of new and more liberal members with stronger connection with the voter base over the party. They support Bolsonaro and his
Social Liberal Party smashed the voter base of the party. The PSDB faced a runoff in three of the four biggest states, namely São Paulo,
Minas Gerais and
Rio Grande do Sul, all of them with more pro-
free market and centre-right views than Alckmin. PSDB triumphed in São Paulo with
João Doria Junior, Rio Grande do Sul with
Eduardo Leite and in the agrarian state of
Mato Grosso do Sul with
Reinaldo Azambuja, also a
centre-right candidate. According to researcher Christophe Ventura, the party's candidates are often evangelicals, multimillionaires and entrepreneurs. They present themselves as "managers" rather than "politicians". ==Party leadership==