Talk:List of political parties in Brazil/Archive 1

Political Orientation
This article has some POV questions. Brazil is sometimes hard to understand. Almost all politicians has a center-leftlist-shaped speaking, when we compare to other countries' politics, especially the US, which has very rightist politicians. Concluding: in this article, the Political Orientation of the parties must be definited by Brazilian context, not by the world's one. It is easier when we assume that the present government is a "center-left government composed by center and leftlist parties". There some exceptions, but it is that. José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Although it does not seems POV to me, I am convinced that it is nearly impossible to fill-in the "Ideology" column in a non-misleading way. From my point of view, it should be removed, or the source should be clearly identified in the column header (i.e. "Ideology acc. to U.S. State Department") to indicate their actual bias.

The speech and behaviour of the main parties in Brazil is driven mostly by electoral, governability and founding concerns. Ideological aspects are secondary. The proof of it are: / the aliances that do not make any sense in terms of alleged ideology / the profile of the financial contributors, similar for the main parties / similar speech (as Sanmartin pointed out) and implemented policies. / lack of unity and ideological coherence inside the parties, tolerating defections on important matters. / frequent migration of politicians from one party to another, in complete disregard to ideological concerns / influence of regional power disputes on decisions with nation wide effects / alliances established at the national level are not replicated at regional level - the regional power dispute logic prevails / political negotiations are by the rule based on post distribution and never in finding a common ground on public policies.

Although qualified as "Center Left" the current government includes in it´s support base almost all parties assigned to the right wing of the political spectre, except for DEM. The most important oposition block includes the alleged social-democrats and alleged conservative liberals, which, by traditional logic, should be mortal enimies. In addition, the ideological dispute in Brazil is very particular. We do have some smaller parties which rationale is strictly Marksist or strictly Liberal, but the speach of most other parties has a mix of European Social-Democrat influence and Getulist "Caudillo" heritage. We may observe that the political debate is now centered on administrative efficiency and corruption issues, rather then on broader ideological vision for the future.

In many cases, whole parties or important party streems are simply subordinated to the political carrier interests of regional leaders.

Moreover, the genesis of some important political parties, notably PMDB and PT, was in oposition to the military dictatorship. They agglutinated various politicaly diverse streams, united by the fight against the "status quo", but without a unique proposal for the country. In part, that heritage still persists.

For all these reasons, I do not see why keeping the "Ideology" column as it is. Mcampos69 (talk) 13:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, here is the U.S. State Department (Foreign Ministry) website's take on the political orientations of Brazilian parties. The site was updated July 2005. Note the similarity (in North American eyes) of today's PSDB and PT parties. (Unsigned comment by Vivaldi4Stagioni)


 * It is strange. PSDB and PT were always enemies in every election they had. I think this would not happen if they were so similar, would it? And PSDB is strongly allied to PFL, a rightlist party. Well PT and PL are allies to, but PL is weaker and ideologically more undefined than PFL. There's no Brazilian references? (Unsigned comment by Sanmartin)
 * That doesn't seem so strange if you consider that it depends on the definitions and criteria for classification. If you take size of the State, for example, as a criteria, leftish governments tend to like bigger States, PSDB's government and now PT's do very much alike in this criteria, with State budget at close to 40% of de GDP. Before PSDB's government taxes were much lower. They are political enemies right now, but that does not mean they don't share common points. I will gather some data on brazilian macroeconomy and upload some graphics for comparison.-Poli (talk &bull; contribs) 03:11, 2005 July 14 (UTC)
 * There's more thing than economy. A good index on state size is the state enterprises. PSDB governments have privatisated a great amount of them, such as Banespa, Vale do Rio Doce, Eletrobrás, Telebrás, in a right-oriented economical vision. José San Martin 22:14, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Here is an interesting analysis by Jornal da Globo columnist Arnaldo Jabor regarding the love-hate rivalry between the PSDB and the PT. It is in Portuguese; I hope to have an English translation soon. (Unsigned comment by Vivaldi4Stagioni)

Coluna de Arnaldo Jabor Sexta-feira, 25 de Fevereiro de 2005 Entre tapas e beijos Arnaldo Jabor "Existe um caso de amor e sexo entre o PSDB e o PT. Se amam e se odeiam. Fernando Henrique era o ídolo do Lula, professor, chique. Fernando Henrique admirava o Lula, criador da nova política no ABC, que até influenciou idéias do PSDB. Os tucanos têm medo do radicalismo operário dos petistas e o PT desconfia da finesse social-democrata dos tucanos. Os petistas se aliam até ao Maluf, mas querem ver os tucanos com a boca cheia de formiga. Por quê? Porque são parecidos, um tem medo de perder a identidade para o outro. Parece papo de namorado. Depois da derrota na Câmara, o Lula pensou: “Fernando Henrique mandou votar no Severino, pois vou manchar seu nome”. Já Fernando Henrique pensou: “Eu, eu não fiz nada, o Lula está com mágoa”.

Aí vêm os amigos: “Fernando Henrique quer acabar com a felicidade do Lula” diz o Dirceu. “Ele tem é ciúme do PT e o PL do PMDB”. Aí, vem o Arthur Virgílio: “Maldade do Lula, Fernando Henrique está acabado”.

Como é triste um amor impossível. O Brasil precisa de reformas e se perde em fofocas, em rancor e ciúme. Ficam se adorando pelo avesso. Que pena. Os dois partidos progressistas do país podiam estar juntinhos na base do: “Eu sei que vou te amar”. E nós seríamos felizes para sempre."


 * Jabor is not what I call realible source of information, don't you agree? José San Martin 22:14, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Certainly not, though it is nice to notice that he seems to have gone over his rabid neoliberal phase...

Ninguém (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

PCdoB
Communist, allied to the government. Extreme left or left are both possible.
 * Extreme left José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

PDT
Originally, Brizola's party. Now, after Brizola's death, the party general profile has changed a bit. Ex-pro-government, now opposition. Center, center-left or left.
 * Center-left. The party's orientation has changed. José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

PPS
Originally a branch of Brazilian Communist Party, but it has changed a lot. No more communist. Ex-pro-government, now opposition. Center, Center-left or left. I agree, it is close to the Center. You might even call it as being closer to Social Liberalism rather than Democratic Socialism. Vivaldi4Stagioni 16:08, July 20, 2007 (UTC)
 * Center. The party is now very close to PSDB: allied in some city in 2004 election. José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

PSB
Very close to PT and pro-government. Has socialist in his name. Center-left or left.
 * Left José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

PT
The great leftlist party. Lula's party. Left or center-left.
 * Left: Just the anti-PT say it is center-left. There are some wing extreme leftlist. José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

PMDB
Have a great number of wings, from center-left to center-right. Center-right center center-left.
 * Center. The best. é o centrão. José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Rather than having a great number of wings, it is a federation of regional personal leaderships. Ninguém (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

PTB
Pro Lula's government (at least until some weeks ago), but it was pro Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government. Right, center-right or center.
 * Center-right José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

And the historical PTB was never "socialist". This is the second time I remove this misinformation from the page, and it is edited to undo the change. Please stop that.

Ninguém (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

PSDB
Totally opposed to Lula. Cardoso's party. Right, center-right, center or center-left.
 * Right. Just right. PT is left and PSDB is just the other side of Brazilian politics, i.e., right. José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Could you please give us some references about that? Poli (talk &bull; contribs) 01:51, 2005 July 11 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? My comment is personal. I think PSDB is rightlist, because it's opposed to PT. Shall I proof that PSDB is opposed to Lula? Well, just see the newspapers, just see any election at any level. (or were you reffering about Cardoso's filiation?) José San Martin 02:52, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Based on your last revert comment (rv edits by Special:Contributions/201.1.115.151 to the last version by User:Sanmartin. See Talk for discussion.) and on the comments on the beginning of this talk page, I assume that you are willing to consider the result of this vote for establishing the orientations of the parties on the article itself. Encyclopedia articles are not about users' opinions. Cite your sources (WP:CITE). And these sources must be recognized as references on the theme. Unless you or some other wikipedian are somehow recognized as authorities on that matter, voting is nonsense, and might create a highly biased or POV article, even if all the voters agree on the same result. Poli (talk &bull; contribs) 06:20, 2005 July 11 (UTC)
 * It is always difficult and irrelevant to label a party as right-wing or left-wing. Being oppositional to a left-wing government doesn't imply that a party is right-wing. So if we want to label a party as left or right wing, please first define what one means with those labels. Electionworld 06:55, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There are no realible sources! Left-right orientations is not a think that you can see labeled in the Party's site. This is, instead a thing that all those who know about that country's politics know. In Brazil it is harder to say, because Brazilian politics don't like to say they are rightist. But PSDB is not just opposed to the government, but it is the politics strenght opposed the Worker's Party (see some elections, 2002 - Serra X Lula. 2004, São Paulo - Serra X Marta). What do we do? Just put "Right-Center-Left" and delete center-right center-left? Well, it would be easier, but it doesn't solve our problem. José San Martin 14:58, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * About PSDB orientation again. It's government was neoliberal, a point to RIGHTIST. Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy (Unisigned comment by Sanmartin)
 * You are being obtuse about the matter. If there are no reliable sources, this information shouldn't be included. Voting won't make it reliable to the point of being accepted as encyclopedic. And as a matter of fact... what do you consider lef and right? Could you point some references? Thanks, Poli (talk &bull; contribs) 17:32, 2005 July 11 (UTC)
 * I forgot to mention: one single authoritary source beats 100 votes, see Wikipedia is not a democracy and Wikipedia is not a soapbox.-Poli (talk &bull; contribs) 00:14, 2005 July 12 (UTC)
 * I understand what you say. But what can I do? This is a slightly obtuse matter. But this information is included in all the articles about parties. There no realible source of information, this is all I can say. We shall take a medium POV. Say, what should we do now? Well, keeping that without changes, I agree. But if it is not clear, delete? It is an utile information, indeed.


 * I believe that US Departament of State is a reliable and unpartial source, and in my opinion (not that I think that it is important) its classificaton is better than the one used on the article.Davivalle 05:13, 8 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I think PSDB is the only social-democracy party in the world that is on the right wing. Tomazrui 18:54, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The PSDB is not right wing, it is poised near the center. It is however closely allied to the rightist PFL party. It is social-democratic in the sense that it believes in government intervention to improve education and health of the general population.  Vivaldi4Stagioni 00:30, 18 September 2005 (UTC)


 * As are most other parties nowadays. It really doesn't make sense to try to labe a party as right-wing or left wing. Electionworld 10:18, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

To The Economist PSDB is a centre-left party and to the british newspaper The Independent PSDB is centrist,i will keep PSDB as a centrist party in the article.


 * PSDB actually has a left-of-center wing (whose most prominent leader is probably São Paulo's governor, José Serra) and a right-of-center faction (best represented by the party's 2006 presidential candidate, Geraldo Alckmin). Overall, it is mostly a centrist party. The Workers' Party (PT) on the other hand was originally seen as being to the left of PSDB, but now supports basically the same economic and social policies. There are still several far left groups within PT though, but they are mostly powerless, both within the party hierarchy and within the Lula administration (pretty much like the left-wing factions in Britain's Labour Party in the post-Blair era). I would say José Serra's positions on macroeconomic policy for example are now probably to the left of Lula's. 161.24.19.82 (talk) 18:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with you. Why don't you change the article according to your expertise and knowledge? --Checco (talk) 03:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * And, don't forget to update and improve Brazilian Social Democracy Party. Your help is definitely needed! --Checco (talk) 03:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

PSDB is not Social-Democratic, for starters; no more than the "German Democratic Republic" was democratic, or Zhirinovky's Liberal Democratic Party in Russia is liberal or democratic. It is not member of the Socialist International, and it has never had a union base. When in government, they applied neo-liberal policies with a fury only comparable to Thatcher's (who by the way they used as model). It is by all means a right-wing party.

It is true that the PT changed to "support basically the same economic and social policies" (and that cost Geraldo Alkmin two million votes on the second round in 2006, because he decried the PT for having lousy policies and copying them from the PSDB in the last debate between the candidates...) In that there is no big difference from European politics, in which the Social-Democratic parties have copied the right wing policies of liberals and conservatives in the last two decades. But in Brazil it is the Social-Democratic PT copying liberal-conservative PSDB policies.

A true social-democratic party is something like the Parti Socialiste Français, the PSOE or British Labour - something historically emerging from working class unions and movements, not a group of academics financed by bankers and landlords. Ninguém (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I can reassure you that the PSDB is more to the left that the British Labour Party. --Checco (talk) 09:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, but the British Labour was originated from the working class movement, the PSDB has nothing to do with the working class, its movements or organisations. It could be, if you believe in their words, a radical liberal party like the French MRG was, or a left-wing bourgeois party. But Social-democratic it is not and has never been.

And the PSDC is even less social-democratic than the PSDB; charitably, it could be considered a Christian-Democratic party. What it is in reality, is a "legenda de aluguel" - a party for hire. Ninguém (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe you are confusing social democracy with democratic socialism... --Checco (talk) 22:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

PFL
Right. No,centre-right,that is what Folha de São Paulo and The Economist thinks.
 * Right 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Where is it on the list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Watabak (talk • contribs) 05:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It is the DEM. Ninguém (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

PP
Pro Lula's government, but it was pro Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government. Right, center-right or center.
 * Right José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

PL
Pro-Lula. The vice-president's party. Center-right, center or center-left.
 * Center. José San Martin 22:19, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

PL is center-right, although is pro-Lula. Tomazrui 18:51, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

PRN
This party doesn't exist anymore since 1995. In this way MDB and ARENA still exist (as PMDB and PP, respectively). Scheridon 17:11, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

General Comments on Brazilian Alignment
Classifing people between right- and left-wing is a complicated issue, specially when talking about Brazilian parties. Communists and Social-Democrats may have their issues, but they are both left-wing. Ultra-facists and liberal-democrats may have a war one against the other, but they are both right-wing. This is a little arbitrary. So, what I'm suggesting is just write that PTB and PFL are right-wing parties and leave the discussion about the flavour of the political spectrum to the parties' articles. Otherwise, we may have a bad inconsistency in Wikipedia: one place saying that someone is social-liberal-center-to-left-right-wing and another aricle saying that the same person is democrat-liberal-center-to-center-right-wing. José San Martin 15:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Why not just take their own definitions? In the PP and PFL articles AND in the List of political parties in Brazil you'll see that both are listed as RIGHT wing parties, and not center-right. I was trying to correct that and explained it in the edit summary.Daniel Trielli 17:19, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The party's own definitions, you mean? This is a little tricky in some cases. PSDB, for instance is sometimes characterized as a right-wing party (neoliberal), sometimes as a center-left party (social-democrat), but its own definition is more or less "we don't like these obsolete right-left definitions". PT says that is "a left-wing party that commands a center-left government" (I think Tarso Genro said this), although it has a wide political spectrum. And what would be PMDB's own definition?
 * It is easy to say that Lionel Jospin and Hugo Chavez are left-wing and Jacques Chirac and Berlusconi are right-wing. Yet, who represents the right-wing in Brazil, who represent the left-wing in United States? It is a confusing issue and probably we will be unable to solve it without a world-wide wikipedia guideline... José San Martin 17:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

A mainstream definition of being 'neoliberal' is to be against state intervention in the economy (the 'nanny state'): heavy taxes, large social spending, big state corporations, state monopoly, etc. By that definition, no government in Brazil's history could be correctly regarged as 'neoliberal'. In FHC's government, for example, even the few privatizations it implemented were helped by state loans(!), taxes continued to grow at a fast pace and countless social programs were added to social spending. A basic problem is that politics in Brazil is currently diverted to a leftist axis from which all political forces are ideologically defined (another problem, of course, is the typical and Latin-American opportunistic populism that defies or even invalidates any coherent classification.) Remember that the Jospin goverment in France privatized more companies than any 'right-wing' government either before or after him, without being defined as anything but 'left' (unless, of course, you accept the 'third-way' as any more than a gimmick.) A solution, then, would be to avoid such narrow definitions wherever possible, replacing them with specific ideological definitons, such as democratic socialist, social-democrat, christian-democrat, centrist, radical centrist, social-liberal, liberal-democrat, liberal-conservative, conservative, etc., just to quote European usage - although even these definitions may be completely elusive, if not outright deceptive. Please see this and this

I moved this discussion to this page as it's more germane to general party alignment. My two cents (for the moment) are these: 1)There is a general tendency to bias "serious" parties in Brazil more to the right when compared to parties abroad. The original PT line would be considered "Progressive" (left) in the US and the PSDB line would be considered "Democratic" (center-left). 2)There's another phenomenon which was mentioned by using the Nolan chart--populism is HUGE in Latin America. Most right-wing or center parties in Brazil actually toe the populism line. We have to actually factor another dimension when talking about Brazilian parties because of this. 3)I am inclined to encourage everyone to find parallels with foreign parties for this Wikipedia section because, as I've mentioned before, left-wing parties abroad can be right-wing parties in Brazil. We are writing for an international and eclectic audience, so where a "center" definition for PL is appropriate for the Brazilian wikipedia, a "right" definition might be more appropriate here (just illustrating--no need to argue about the PL). I know this only adds a layer of complexity, but I think it can make this discussion better, more well-founded and more, well, "universal". I can try to add this perspective as I live and study abroad, but we gotta get it started.--Dali-Llama 23:59, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Upcoming merger
After PTB has absorbed PAN in order to pass above the 5% "barrier clause", a new party is also being planned. Former vice-president party PL (23 seats in Chamber of Deputies), PSC (9), PTC (4) and Prona (2) have agreed on a merger. Proposed names for this new party are PR - Partido Republicano (Republican Party) and PDR - Partido Democrático Republicano (Democratic Republican Party). I take this from the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, 2006-10-17. Amorim Parga

Boxes
I would like to align the boxes to the left (in order to make things more ordered), but I can't understand how to do it. Is there anyone who can help me? --Checco 22:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * No-one can help me? --Checco 07:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've done it. Ko'oy 23:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much! --Checco 02:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)