The Democratic Labour Party (PDT) was founded in 1979 by left-wing leader
Leonel Brizola as an attempt to reorganise the Brazilian left-wing forces during the end of the
Brazilian military dictatorship. Many of its members, including Brizola, had been active in the historical
Brazilian Labour Party prior to the
1964 coup, which drove into exile or assassinated a number of its prominent members including ousted President
João Goulart. Returning from exile in
Uruguay, Brizola originally wanted to reclaim the PTB name for his party, but the military government awarded it to
a more moderate grouping led by
Ivete Vargas,
Getúlio Vargas's great-niece, leading to PDT being formed by a large majority of historical PTB members a week later. The PDT joined the
Socialist International as a consultative member in 1986 and a full member in 1989. symbol associated with the party began being used in 1990 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 the
Brazilian Socialist Party. PDT enjoyed wide, but regionalized electoral success in the 1980s and 1990s, with Brizola winning the governorship of the
Rio de Janeiro state, becoming the first and only Brazilian to have governed two different states, previously his native
Rio Grande do Sul before the coup and while leading a
civil resistance campaign which had successfully delayed
an earlier coup attempt in 1962. Meanwhile, it also elected
Alceu 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 the
right-wing candidate,
Fernando Collor de Mello, in the runoff. Brizola lost two more additional bids in
1994, and
1998, as Lula's running mate. In
2002 it launched
Ciro Gomes, but later supported Lula in the runoffs as he won in his fourth presidential attempt. In the
2002 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 in
Amapá. 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 local
elections 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, the
Workers' 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 the
2006 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 of
Amapá, and won a surprising victory in the gubernatorial election in
Maranhão, which however was overturned due to electoral irregularities in 2009. At the
2010 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, in
Alagoas. The PDT was the first party of president
Dilma Rousseff (now in PT). Although the PDT voted against the
impeachment of Rousseff, six deputies voted in favor, resulting in the suspension of five deputies and the expulsion of the sixth,
Giovani Cherini. In 2018, the party announced
Ciro 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, the second highest by a PDT candidate, second only to Leonel Brizola's bid, in 1989. Despite being against the winner of the first round, and the eventual president elected, Jair Bolsonaro, he did not formally endorse Fernando Haddad. It launched Gomes for president again in 2022. ==Ideology==