The Workers' Party is a centre-left political party in Brazil that is currently the country's ruling party. Some scholars classify its ideology in the 21st century as social democracy, with the party shifting from a broadly socialist ideology in the 1990s, although the party retains a left-wing and marginal far-left faction to this day. Founded in 1980, PT governed at the federal level in a coalition government with several other parties from 1 January 2003 to 31 August 2016. After the 2002 parliamentary election, PT became the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies and the largest in the Federal Senate for the first time. With the highest approval rating in the history of the country at one time, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was PT's most prominent member. Dilma Rousseff, also a member of PT, was elected twice but did not finish her second term due to her impeachment in 2016. The party came back to power with Lula's victory in the 2022 presidential election.
Progressistas is a centre-right to right-wing political party in Brazil. Founded in 1995 as the Brazilian Progressive Party, it emerged from parties that were successors to ARENA, the ruling party of the Brazilian military dictatorship. A pragmatist party, it supported the governments of presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dilma Rousseff, Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro. Largely it was the party of the politics of Paulo Maluf, a former governor and mayor of São Paulo. Of all political parties, in corruption investigation Operation Car Wash, the Progressistas had the most convictions.
José Serra Chirico is a Brazilian politician who has served as a Congressman, Senator, Minister of Planning, Minister of Health, Mayor of São Paulo, Governor of São Paulo state, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil.
José Dirceu, in full José Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, is a former Brazilian politician. His political rights were suspended by the Brazilian House of Representatives and he was found guilty by the Brazilian Supreme Court of active corruption and conspiracy in two separate lawsuits.
The Mensalão scandal was a major parliamentary alleged vote-buying scandal by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration that threatened to bring down his government in 2005. Mensalão is a neologism, an augmentative variant of the word for "monthly payment".
Guido Mantega is an Italian-born Brazilian economist and politician. Mantega served as Minister of Finance from 2006 to 2015 under the presidencies of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. His tenure as Minister of Finance, which spanned over eight years in office, was the longest in Brazilian history.
The Republicans, formerly the Brazilian Republican Party and originally formed as the Municipalist Renewal Party, is a Brazilian political party. Its electoral number, the numerical assignment for Brazilian political parties, is 10.
Dilma Vana Rousseff is a Brazilian economist and politician who has been the Chair of the New Development Bank since March 2023. Previously, she served as the 36th president of Brazil from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She is the first woman to have held the Brazilian presidency. She also previously served as the chief of staff to former and current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2005 to 2010.
The Liberal Party is a liberal-conservative political party in Brazil. From its foundation in 2006 until 2019, it was called the Party of the Republic.
Tarso Fernando Herz Genro is a Brazilian politician from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. An associate of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Genro was a leader of the Workers' Party (PT) in the 2000s.
The Mensalão scandal took place in Brazil in 2005 and threatened to bring down the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Mensalão is a neologism and variant of the word for "big monthly payment".
General elections were held in Brazil on 3 October 2010 to elect the president, National Congress and state governors. As no presidential candidate received more than 50% in the first round of voting, a second round was held on 31 October to choose a successor to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT), who was constitutionally ineligible to run for a third term as he has already served two terms after winning the elections in 2002 and being re-elected in 2006.
Socialism in Brazil is generally thought to trace back to the first half of the 19th century. There are documents evidencing the diffusion of socialist ideas since then, but these were individual initiatives with no ability to form groups with actual political activism.
Fernando Haddad is a Brazilian scholar, lawyer and politician who has served as the Brazilian Minister of Finance since 1 January 2023. He was previously the mayor of São Paulo from 2013 to 2017 and the Brazilian minister of education from 2005 to 2012.
Corruption in Brazil exists on all levels of society from the top echelons of political power to the smallest municipalities. Operation Car Wash showed central government members using the prerogatives of their public office for rent-seeking activities, ranging from political support to siphoning funds from state-owned corporation for personal gain. The Mensalão scandal for example used taxpayer funds to pay monthly allowances to members of congress from other political parties in return for their support and votes in congress. Politicians also used the state-owned and state-run oil company Petrobras to raise hundreds of millions of reais for political campaigns and personal enrichment.
The Social Democratic Party is a political party in Brazil led by Gilberto Kassab and uniting dissidents from various political parties, especially the Democrats, Brazilian Social Democracy Party and Party of National Mobilization.
Operation Car Wash was a landmark anti-corruption probe in Brazil. Beginning in March 2014 as the investigation of a small car wash in Brasília over money laundering, the proceedings uncovered a massive corruption scheme in the Brazilian federal government, particularly in state-owned enterprises. The probe was conducted through a joint task force of agents in the federal police, revenue collection agency, internal audit office and antitrust regulator. Evidence was collected and presented to the court system by a team of federal prosecutors led by Deltan Dallagnol, while the judge in charge of the operation was Sergio Moro. Eventually, other federal prosecutors and judges would go on to oversee related cases under their jurisdictions in various Brazilian states. The operation implicated leading businessmen, federal congressmen, senators, state governors, federal government ministers, and former presidents Collor, Temer and Lula. Companies and individuals accused of involvement have agreed to pay 25 billion reais in fines and restitution of embezzled public funds.
In 2015 and 2016, a series of protests in Brazil denounced corruption and the government of President Dilma Rousseff, triggered by revelations that numerous politicians allegedly accepted bribes connected to contracts at state-owned energy company Petrobras between 2003 and 2010 and connected to the Workers' Party, while Rousseff chaired the company's board of directors. The first protests on 15 March 2015 numbered between one and nearly three million protesters against the scandal and the country's poor economic situation. In response, the government introduced anti-corruption legislation. A second day of major protesting occurred 12 April, with turnout, according to GloboNews, ranging from 696,000 to 1,500,000. On 16 August, protests took place in 200 cities in all 26 states of Brazil. Following allegations that Rousseff's predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, participated in money laundering and a prosecutor ordered his arrest, record numbers of Brazilians protested against the Rousseff government on 13 March 2016, with nearly 7 million citizens demonstrating.
Events in the year 2016 in Brazil:
The Movement Come to the Streets is a Brazilian sociopolitical movement founded in October 2014. The movement emerged in October 2014 as an attempt to organize and unite people in the face of the 2014 Brazilian economic crisis during the Dilma Rousseff government. The movement focused on the government of the former president, the fight against corruption, the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and the approval of the 10 Measures against Corruption, a bill of the Federal Public Ministry.
