Talk:Brazilian Social Democracy Party

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Ideology/political position
I think it should be reflected that the party is actually centre-right (being also affiliated to the Christian Democrat Organization of America, which groups conservative parties). --Miacek (talk) 09:53, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

PSDB is a center-left party
Fernando Henrique Cardoso says that PSDB is a centre-left political party or a left of the centre party and not a centre right party. PSDB is only a observer of Centrist Democratic International. See the article in the original language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.15.3.163 (talk) 11:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * And the critics from the left argue (quite convincingly) that it is a neoliberal party. The fact is that the party is social democratic in name only. -- Miacek (t) 12:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * FHC said that BSDP is a center-left or a left of the centre political party. Serra has proposed the allignement to the the centre-left. Serra proposed a new center-left PSDB is a center-left party PSDB, a center-left party PSDB proposed a new centre-left platform --Baf09 (talk) 17:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Blogs normally wouldn't qualify as sources. What you did was just giving a number of pieces that can be found via casual google search. Similarly, there are definitely many hits for query centro derecha+psdb. -- Miacek (t) 17:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Centro-derecha Miacek? They don't speak spanish in Brazil, but Portuguese. Well in most south american neighbours of brazil there are left government to whom even traditional social democrats are right-wing. Look for centro direita + PSDB and then we'll talk about it. Not that PSDB hasn't adopted a lot of neoliberalism but the truth is that they mix it with neokeynesianism (the third way may not be synonym with centre-right. What LEFT crititics say doesn't matter, only what critics all across the spectrum say. Though many of those also agree with the left, but give a more profound and less ax grinding portrait. Though it would be interesting compare the case with the Portuguese Social Democrats, who are FULL MEMBERS of the Centrist Democrat International. Lususromulus (talk) 19:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Authors of this source argue that by the timethe party was elected to the national government, the party had already moved to the ideological right. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog |  woof!  13:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

This Miacek guy doesn't even know what language is spoken in Brazil and still wants to argue with other people that are clearly better informed. Read something about the country first, THEN start discussing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.60.80.220 (talk) 05:18, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I do speak Portuguese as a first language. I do live in Brazil. I am quite well informed about the Brazilian political situation. Fact is, "right" is a taboo in Brazil; no politician or political party will ever publicly state they are right-wing. The political spectrum in Brazil, considering such self-proclamations, only goes from extreme-left to center.


 * I agree with Ninguém. This is a phenomenon known as sinistrisme in France, where for a long time centrist, centre-right and rightwing parties would all name themselves or describe themselves as socialist or as left. We should not allow this language to mislead us. 195.72.173.52 (talk) 11:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The PSDB was a center-left party (though never socialist, nor even social-democratic) long ago, when it was founded, as a split from the PMDB. But since then it has won two presidential terms, both in close alliance with the DEM (ex-PFL, the archetypical right-wing political party in Brazil), and accordingly governed Brazil (in close alliance with the DEM) during eight long years (1995-2002); its government was by no means anything even close to "center-left". Further, the PSDB has been, for the late eight years, the main opposition party in Brazil (again in close alliance with the DEM). Their opposition to the (center-left, by the way) current government was never, ever, from a center-left standpoint.


 * It is only necessary to look at Serra's current presidential campaign to dispell any fantasies about them being "center-left". Attempts to focus the campaign around abortion, from a pro-life standpoint; systematic criticism of the currrent government's economic policies, that "cause shortages on working force"; criticism of the current government's foreign policies (that they see as straying too much from what they deem a necessary alignment with the United States; accusations that the other candidate will "legalise prostitution", "legalise drugs", "make Brazil into a syndicalist republic" or "Castroite dictatorship"; repeated attempts to portray the other candidate as a "terrorist", a "lesbian", a "murderer of children", etc. How are those things "centre-left" stances? Ninguém (talk) 16:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok. But that's your opinion. If you want to put this on the Wikipedia article, you must cite a reliable external source to prove it. Look WP:Verifiability. --Laciportbus (talk) 06:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

No; I don't want to put "this" on the article. But those who want to put into it the statement that the PSDB is a center-left party, don't they need a reliable source for it? And does "reliable source", by definition, not exclude the party's own opinion about itself? Ninguém (talk) 19:17, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. And the cited sources (The Guardian and the Freedom House) for "center-left" are known and considered reliable by many. News organizations, for instance, are generally considered reliable by Wikipedia and are usually cited in the articles. --Laciportbus (talk) 01:06, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see Wikipedia describing PSDB as "centre-left". Many reputable sources consider it centre-right. Examples: the Financial Times ( http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37bb8c70-cfeb-11df-bb9e-00144feab49a.html ); the Guardian ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/inside-brazil/working-class-hero - though I am aware the Guardian has also been cited by the other side); the BBC ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11662712 : "The PSDB must wonder whether it is capable of recapturing the support of those voters from lower-earning families. Before 2006, these voters were quite likely to vote for a candidate of the right or centre-right, but for the past two elections these voters have overwhelmingly supported the PT's candidates"). PS I realise that PSDB has "social democrat" in its name, but so do the conservative parties of Portugal and Gibraltar. The fact that (like the Portuguese Social Democrats) the PSDB has chosen to align itself internationally with the German Christian Democrats and other centre-right parties, and not with social democracy, is interesting. 86.164.162.231 (talk) 07:56, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Similarly, the highly reputable newspaper The Economist views PSDB as centre-right: http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2010/10/brazils_presidential_election_1 195.72.173.52 (talk) 13:15, 1 November 2010 (UTC) So it may be a good idea to unprotect the page now that it's been shown to have potentially tendentious content? 86.164.162.231 (talk) 07:06, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * As a compromise (to try to avoid POV) I have updated the article to say "centrist" rather than centre-left. (My own view is it's a centre-right party: I'm the same person as 86.164.162.231.)  I'm not sure if this is a wholly satisfactory compromise but arguably the term "centrism" can encompass centre-right and centre-left. RichardQ (talk) 19:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that would be more fair to say that the party political position is "unclear" or "disputable", being considered as "centre-left" to some analysts, "centrist" or even "centre-right" to others, citing the respective sources. The article would look like more complete and impartial. --Laciportbus (talk) 20:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I think there is a confusion about sources. One thing is a source saying, "the PSDB is a centre-left party"; another thing is a source saying, "according to its leader José Serra, the PSDB is a centre-left party". The former depends on the reliability of the source; the latter, on the reliability of the quoted person; if, as in the given example, they have a direct interest in the issue, they are non-neutral and therefore unreliable by definition (conversely, something like "according to the PT leader Eduardo Suplicy, the PSDB is a right-wing party" is equally unreliable).

Fact is, the two main parties that fight each other in Brazilian politics are the PT and the PSDB. If the PSDB is centre-left, what is the PT? Right-wing? Doesn't look like that. Radical left? In this case, who is the right in Brazilian politics, and how does the PT manage to keep an alliance with obviously non-leftist parties like the PMDB? And, since "left" and "right" are relative, wouldn't the PSDB then qualify as "right"? Or perhaps the PT is Centre-left too? In this case, why don't the PT and the PSDB join forces, instead of considering each other their main adversaries?

Another fact is, in Brazil the term "right" when applied to politics is seen as demeaning and offensive (which historically comes from the fact that the "right" was identified with the 1964-1985 dictatorship). Even conservatives consider themselves "centre-left", contrary to every evidence. And so self-descriptions by Brazilian politicians should be taken with a grain of salt; the same goes for party names ("Social Democracia", "Democratas", "Social Liberal", "Trabalhista", "Social Liberal" - all of them obfuscate more than describe the parties they refer to). Ninguém (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok. Sinistrisme notwithstanding, a lot of this confusion has to do with the diverse set of positions of the main figureheads of the party. Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso was once a left-wing sociologist who eventually came to say forget what I wrote. Mário Covas, whose protegé Geraldo Alckmin unsuccesfully ran for president, argued forcefully for a capitalist shock to the brazilian economy and society, thus taking a clearer thatcherite position. José Serra, who also ran for president, is a heterodox economist graduated at CEPAL, a wellspring of nationalistic, interventionist latin-american economic policy. PSDB tends to be seen as "to the right", in my view, mostly because Fernando Henrique kept going with the process of free-market reforms that were started by Fernando Collor de Mello and partially continued by Itamar Franco (two former presidents not affiliated to PSDB). There's also a certain allegiance by distinction; people who have any kind of right-ish point of view (which would be way to the left in the USA, nota bene) tends to support PSDB rather than PT, even if this right-ish point of view is simply going against price controls and overt industrial policy. In response to that PSDB has sometimes presented itself as social conservative for the sake of a presidential election, such as Jose Serra arguing against abortion rights to win votes -- even though he's probably the leftmost leadership of the party. All in all, presidential elections in Brazil, as in the US (but in sharp distinction with many other countries) are very dramatic events, and one has to be wary of reading too much from news reports circa election cycles. It would be much better to process voting data from important parliamentary sessions year-round. But anyway, when in doubt, I'd hazard that PT is center-left, PSDB is center-center and DEM is center-right as far as the american Overton window goes. --Dnavarro (talk) 16:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * PSDB is clearly a centre-right party only called social democratic due to Sinistrisme. No genuinely left-wing party would join conservative alliances such as Centrist Democrat International or Christian Democrat Organization of America, rather than Socialist International of Progressive Alliance (were they rejected by the latter organizations?). PSDB is clearly an economically liberal party with as little to do with social democracy as French counterparts like Rassemblement des gauches républicaines once had.Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 19:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Brazilian Social Democracy Party
Wouldn't Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira translate better as Brazilian Social Democracy party? Strictly speaking there is no Brazilian Social Democratic Party, at least not as a name for this one party. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.214.59.222 (talk) 13:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Centre-right
The two sources from Italian news pages say that Aecio Neves is the candidate of the centre-right. They do not say that PSDB is a centre-right party. Neves is the candidate of a centre-right coalition, mainly consisting of the centrist PSDB and PTB and the right-wing Democratas. Therefore he is the candidate of the centre-right. Why should two articles by Italian journalists (who are probably not experts on Brazilian politics) be considered more important than dozens of other sources describing PSDB as centrist, anyway? --RJFF (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

PSDB is not a centre-right party.

 * 1) PSDB was born as a leftist schism of the centrist PMDB.
 * 2) The party was created mainly by leftists and opponents to the Military Regime.
 * 3) The "Plano Real" was created during Itamar Franco Government, not during Fernando Henrique Government.
 * 4) The privatization of many state-owned companies was necessary in order to stabilize the economy which suffered years of statist governments and failed interventionistic economic plans. And in fact many Nordic social-democrat party also privatized companies in order to recover economic grown.
 * 5) FHC never said "forget all I wrote", contrariwise he says that his government was in accordance to his works. He debunked this myth during an interview to the "O Globo" newspaper. (http://www.midiasemmascara.org/arquivos/4508-esquecam-tudo-o-que-eu-escrevi.html)
 * 6) PSDB is not a liberal party, as it is said by many leftists. During FHC Government, the tax revenue increased enormously. (http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/pensata/ult1470u21.shtml)
 * 7) PSDB is not a conservative party. There are no significant conservative positions inside the party, maybe there are none.
 * 8) PSDB makes alliances mainly with centrist parties, while he may be a long-term ally of the corporativist neoliberal Democratas, however it is also a long-term ally of the socialistic PPS.
 * 9) PSDB was a member of the Socialist International, however the organization did not allowed them into their XXII Convention, causing indignation inside the party, who described PT as a "conservative party aligned to the elites". (http://www.psdb.org.br/congresso-da-internacional-socialista/)
 * 10) PT was a harsh opponent to Fernando Henrique's economic policy, however Lula kept the same "neoliberal" plan.
 * 11) PSDB created social programs which were the precursors of Lula's social programs (Bolsa Escola, Auxilio Gás, PETI, etc).
 * 12) José Serra is an enemy to the tobacco, as Minister of Health he banned all propaganda of cigarettes. He is probably the most leftist member of the party (however probably after FHC who supports marijuanna legalization and 'regulation' of the media), in true I think he despises both tobacco and the military.
 * 13) Geraldo Alckmin is a centrist and statist politician who uses the goverment to benefit private corporations. Also he is not conservative in any way. (http://homemculto.com/2013/06/13/para-quem-acha-que-psdb-nao-corre-atras-de-voto-esteja-onde-estiver/)
 * 14) The pro-life position of many brazilian politicians in Brazil (including Dilma Rousseff) is taken because the brazilian people are massively right wing and conservative. They usually adopt moderate leftist positions but never such audacious choice.
 * 15) When studying any democratic and moderate party it is necessary to remember that leftists always manipulate the double meaning of the word "conservative", which may describe someone who supports the current situation or someone who values western culture and tradition.

I hope this post answers all questions. Lord Osmund Saddler (talk) 01:39, 14 November 2014 (UTC)