Democratic Renewal Party (Brazil)

The Democratic Renewal Party (Partido Renovação Democrática, PRD) is a political party in Brazil, announced on 26 October 2022 as a fusion of Patriota and the Brazilian Labour Party (PTB). Both parties didn't reach the electoral threshold in the 2022 general election. Consequently, they would not have access to resources of the partisan budget nor the right of political propaganda in radio and television.

With the fusion, the valid votes of both parties are summed up and the new organization is considered as a party which reached the electoral threshold. The merger was approved by the Superior Electoral Court on 9 November 2023.

Party threshold
Since the 2018 general election, a progressive electoral threshold was established for Brazilian political parties to have access to public partisan budget and propaganda in radio and television.

PTB
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 banned 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 Brizola, attempted to recreate the party, but the military government instead awarded the name to a group led by Ivete Vargas, grand-niece of Getúlio, 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, which all but ensured that the new PTB would abandon leftist politics, ultimately embracing centrist or slightly right-leaning politics. Brizola instead led his faction to found the Democratic Labour Party (PDT).

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.

With the rise of conservatism and Bolsonarism in Brazil (part of a regional phenomenon known as the 'conservative wave') in 2018, 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.

Threshold of PTB
On 24 October 2022, PTB honorary president, Roberto Jefferson, was arrested after disobeying measures of his home arrest imposed by the Supreme Federal Court. In the occasion, Jefferson engaged in a shootout with Federal Police. Jefferson subsequently lost significant influence in the party.

When the PTB did not reach the threshold in 2022, the parties began rounds of negotiation for a fusion.

Patriota
The party was founded as the National Ecological Party (PEN) in 2011. The party was a centre-right green conservative party, originally meant to attract politician Marina Silva, known for her environmental activism, in case her party Sustainability Network did not get the authorization to take part in the 2014 Brazilian general election. This proposal failed and the party obtained a small quantity of votes in the 2014 elections, while endorsing then presidential candidate Aécio Neves. In 2017, the PEN changed when Jair Bolsonaro announced he would enter the party, in a bid to run for President of Brazil in the 2018 Brazilian general election. PEN changed its name to Patriota (PATRI) and abandoned its former environmentalist ideals to become a right-wing conservative party pursuing a right-wing populist agenda, influenced by Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 United States presidential election and Brexit. Patriota has renounced its green and pro-ecologist policies in favor of its conservative and nationalist policies; it has maintained and strengthened its religious opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, and other socially progressive policies. After an internal conflict, Bolsonaro gave up on joining Patriota and chose to join the Social Liberal Party instead in January 2018. Nevertheless, the party maintained its change of name and ideology, and launched former firefighter and evangelical pastor Cabo Daciolo as their presidential nominee, without partnering with any political party. Daciolo is known for his controversial political views, which include turning Brazil into a Christian theocracy. Daciolo got 1.3% of votes and did not endorse Bolsonaro nor Haddad in the second round.

Threshold of Patriota
In 2018, Patriota didn't reach the minimum percentage. Consequently, the party absorbed the Progressive Republican Party (PRP). Patriota failed to reach the threshold again in 2022.

Fusion
On 26 October 2022, the fusion was approved by the national conventions of both parties, having as a requirement the ban on Jefferson and Eduardo Cunha in the new party.

The merger was approved by the Superior Electoral Court under the Democratic Renewal Party name on 9 November 2023.

Name
It was originally decided that the new party would be called More Brazil (Mais Brasil) and would use the number 25, previously used by the defunct Democrats (DEM), which fused with the Social Liberal Party (PSL) in 2021 to form the Brazil Union. However, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) had previously rejected a petition from the Brazilian Woman's Party to change their name to "For More Brazil" (Por Mais Brasil), on the grounds that the name made no distinction from its political-ideological orientation and could cause confusion among voters in relation to the Brazilian state itself, so as a preventative measure the party approved the name "Democratic Renewal Party" as a secondary or backup name in case the TSE rejected the original name.

Ideology
The predecessor parties of the PRD, PTB and Patriota, were conservative and nationalist parties at the time of the merger, even having integralist factions with the arrival of some members of the PTB Brazilian Integralist Front. The parties can be considered as right-wing to far-right.