Amandla! Issue NO.84 18T
HE 2022 ELECTIONS, AND THE
recent history of Brazil, are an
example of how social
constructions such as political
parties are able to survive and succeed over
long periods of history. They can do this if
they are rooted in the social, economic and
political structure of a country and
they combine that rootedness with
the talent and coherence of
leadership.
This is the history of the
Partido dos Trabalhadores, the PT
(Workers Party), and of its leader,
Lula da Silva. Once again, at 76
years of age, he is a candidate for
president and he has a real chance
of winning , even in the first round
of the presidential elections on
October 2nd, 2022.The beginnings
The story of the PT begins at
the end of the 70s with the
mobilisations of a new trade
unionism. Its epicenter was in
the industrial regions of greater
São Paulo. It rejected the old trade
union structures. In one way or
another they had yielded to the
associated interests of capital and
the military dictatorship, which
had been in power since the 1964
coup d’état.
The ABC strikes in the late 70s in
the suburbs of Sao Paulo were a social
and political revolt against the military
government and for democracy. They
strongly influenced other pre-existing
political and social movements, such as
the Catholic grassroots movement, This
movement was itself strongly influenced
by “liberation theory”, with enormous
popularity in Brazil. It was linked to
struggles such as the struggle for access to
land, against agrarian violence and also,
at an urban level, against poverty and for
social rights.
Many left-wing and progressive
intellectuals saw in this emerging
actor a possibility for change, and they
joined. Also, political parties of various
tendencies and leaders of left-wingpolitical groups were part of the strategic
nucleus that created the Partido dos
Trabalhadores in 1980. In the same
period, the new unionism also created
the trade union federation, Central Única
dos Trabalhadores (CUT) in 1983. This
gathered together the power of the workersin the labour sphere of the struggle.
In short, the movement that catalysed
the founding and rise of the PT was
made up of these pillars: the new trade
unionism, intellectuals and leaders of the
leftist parties, and the Catholic grassroots
movement.Electoral politics
The PT was what emerged from this social
mobilisation. It continued the ideas built
in the heat of the social struggle and
translated them into electoral language, in
its 20-year march to finally winning the
presidential elections in 2002.
During that time, there was an
awareness of this passage from social
mobilisation to electoral struggle, and
it was the subject of much debate. Thisdebate was at the centre of the strategic
discussions of the early 1980s. In 1982 the
PT participated in its first elections, and
Lula was defeated for governor in the State
of São Paulo. However, the PT achieved its
first federal Deputies.
In 1986, Lula was elected a Deputyin the Federal Chamber of Deputies (like
South Africa’s House of Assembly - ed). He
participated in the Constitution-making
process that culminated in 1988. (the
PT had 16 members of the 559 member
Constituent Assembly). After that,
the electoral dimension of the PT was
consolidated by winning the elections in
some municipalities. This led to the PT’s
first participation in the direct presidential
election in 1989. Lula was defeated
by Fernando Collor de Mello, a young
candidate of a minor party who gained
the support of the entire conservative
spectrum. This was the first radical
expression of so called “antipetism” (anti-
PTism - being against the PT).
The PT was rooted among the people
through the trade union network, pastoralELECTIONS IN BRAZIL:
cycles of popular struggle and the
role of the Workers Party
By Gonzalo Berrón
First national meeting of the PT. Political parties of various tendencies and
leaders of left-wing political groups were part of the strategic nucleus that
created the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) in 1980.Perspectives for the left