Brazilian general election, 1950

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Brazilian presidential election, 1950
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←  1945 October 3, 1950 (1950-10-03) 1955  →
  Getulio.gif Eduardo-Gomes 1960s.jpg
Candidate Getúlio Vargas Eduardo Gomes
Party PTB UDN
Home state Rio Grande do Sul Rio de Janeiro
Popular vote3,849,0402,342,384
Percentage48.7%29.7%
President before election

Eurico Gaspar Dutra
PSD

Elected President

Getúlio Vargas
PTB

Brazil
Coat of arms of Brazil.svg
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General elections were held in Brazil on 3 October 1950. [1] The presidential elections were won by Getúlio Vargas of the Brazilian Labour Party, whilst the Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, although they lost their majority in the former. Voter turnout was 72.1% in the presidential election, 72.0% in the Chamber elections and 77.7% in the Senate elections. [2]

Brazil Federal republic in South America

Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the fifth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populated city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, and the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas; it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world.

Getúlio Vargas President of Brazil

Getúlio Dornelles Vargas was a Brazilian lawyer and politician, who served as President during two periods: the first was from 1930–1945, when he served as interim president from 1930–1934, constitutional president from 1934–1937, and dictator from 1937–1945. After being overthrown in a 1945 coup, Vargas returned to power as the democratically elected president in 1951, serving until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the longest of any President, and second in Brazilian history only to Emperor Pedro II among heads of state. He favored nationalism, industrialization, centralization, social welfare and populism – for the latter, Vargas won the nickname "The Father of the Poor". Vargas is one of a number of populists who arose during the 1930s in Latin America, including Lazaro Cardenas and Juan Perón, who promoted nationalism and pursued social reform. He was a proponent of workers' rights as well as a staunch anti-communist.

The Brazilian Labour Party was a centre-left populist political party in Brazil founded in 1945 by supporters of President Getúlio Vargas. It was dismantled by the military after 1964 coup d'état.

Contents

Background

After living in self-imposed exile in his Riograndense ranch between his overthrow in 1945 and 1950, former President Getúlio Vargas, who had already been elected a senator in 1945, decided to run for the Presidency, as the candidate of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), one of the two he founded after he decided to put an end to his 15-year dictatorship. Vargas, although in exile, remained active on the sidelines of Brazilian politics during the Presidency of his former War Minister, Eurico Gaspar Dutra. He notably criticized his successor's economic policies, taking a hard nationalist and populist tone which appealed to the base of the PTB, organized labour.

Rio Grande do Sul State of Brazil

Rio Grande do Sul is a state located in the southern region of Brazil. It is the fifth most populous state and the ninth largest by area. Located in the southernmost part of the country, Rio Grande do Sul is bordered clockwise by Santa Catarina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Uruguayan departments of Rocha, Treinta y Tres, Cerro Largo, Rivera and Artigas to the south and southwest, and the Argentine provinces of Corrientes and Misiones to the west and northwest. The capital and largest city is Porto Alegre. The state has the highest life expectancy in Brazil, and the crime rate is considered to be low.

Eurico Gaspar Dutra president of Brazil from 1946 to 1951

Eurico Gaspar Dutra was a Brazilian military leader and politician who served as 16th President of Brazil from 1946 to 1951. He was the first President of the Second Brazilian Republic which immediately followed the Vargas Regime.

In April 1950, the Social Democratic Party, also pro-Vargas but based more around industrialists and state political machines, rejected the idea of forming a coalition with the PTB or the UDN and decided to run its own candidate. They nominated Cristiano Machado, a little-known congressman for Minas Gerais.

Minas Gerais State of Brazil

Minas Gerais is a state in the north of Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a major urban and finance center in Latin America, and the sixth largest municipality in Brazil, after the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Brasilia and Fortaleza, but its metropolitan area is the third largest in Brazil with just over 5,500,000 inhabitants, after those of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Nine Brazilian presidents were born in Minas Gerais, the most of any state.

However, Vargas was able to forge an alliance with a number of PSD state leaders, notably in his own state of Rio Grande do Sul and in Rio de Janeiro. In Pernambuco, he even forged an alliance with his traditional rivals, the UDN. This phenomenon - to nominate a candidate and support another - became known as "cristianization" in Brazil. In the state of São Paulo, he forged an alliance with Adhemar de Barros' Social Progressive Party (PSP), a populist electoral machine who dominated state politics. The PSP was the only other party to officially endorse him, and provided him with his running-mate (who was separately elected), João Café Filho. Vargas also assured himself of the support, or at least approval, of the military which had deposed him in 1945. He reconciled himself with the dominant figure of the military then, Góes Monteiro, who had played a role in his 1945 overthrow. [3]

Rio de Janeiro Second-most populous municipality in Brazil

Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is anchor to the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area and the second-most populous municipality in Brazil and the sixth-most populous in the Americas. Rio de Janeiro is the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's third-most populous state. Part of the city has been designated as a World Heritage Site, named "Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea", by UNESCO on 1 July 2012 as a Cultural Landscape.

Pernambuco State of Brazil

Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. The state of Pernambuco also includes the archipelago Fernando de Noronha. With an estimated population of 9.2 million people in 2013, it is the seventh most populous state of Brazil, and is the sixth most densely populated and the 19th most extensive among the states and territories of the country. Its capital and largest city, Recife, is one of the most important economic and urban hubs in the country. As of 2013 estimates, Recife's metropolitan area is the fifth most populous in the country, and the largest urban agglomeration in Northeast Brazil.

São Paulo Municipality in Brazil

São Paulo is a municipality in the Southeast Region of Brazil. The metropolis is an alpha global city and the most populous city in Brazil, the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere, besides being the largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world. The municipality is also the Earth's 11th largest city proper by population. The city is the capital of the surrounding state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest state in Brazil. It exerts strong international influences in commerce, finance, arts and entertainment. The name of the city honors the Apostle, Saint Paul of Tarsus. The city's metropolitan area, the Greater São Paulo, ranks as the most populous in Brazil and the 12th most populous on Earth. The process of conurbation between the metropolitan areas located around the Greater São Paulo created the São Paulo Macrometropolis, a megalopolis with more than 30 million inhabitants, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world.

The right-wing National Democratic Union (UDN), noted for its radical anti-Vargas posture, once again nominated Eduardo Gomes as its candidate. The party proved woefully unable to expand its narrow electoral base, and not even the anti-Vargas rhetoric of 1945 could deliver more votes. The UDN and Gomes also proved their little comprehension of the evolving Brazilian political scene by supporting abolishing the minimum wage instituted in Vargas' past administration. [4]

National Democratic Union (Brazil) political party in Brazil

The National Democratic Union was a political party that existed in Brazil between 1945 and 1965. It was ideologically aligned with conservatism. During most of its existence, it was the country's second-strongest party. Its symbol was an Olympic torch and its motto was "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance", a quote falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

Eduardo Gomes Brazilian Air Force Marshal

Air Marshal Eduardo Gomes was a Brazilian politician and military figure. He was born in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil.

During the Eurico Gaspar Dutra administration, the Brazilian Communist Party had its license revoked by the Supreme Electoral Court in the context of the early Cold War. Communists oriented their followers not to vote, but a significant share of them voted on Vargas.

Brazilian Communist Party

The Brazilian Communist Party, originally Partido Comunista do Brasil until 1958, is, disputedly, the oldest political party still active in Brazil, founded in 1922. It played an important role in the country's 20th-century history. It was one of the biggest parties in the country, maintaining, with PCdoB, an unified resistance against the dictatorship, but with the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism, the party lost power, and an internal coup in 1992 divided the party and formed a new party, called Socialist People's Party, using the former identification number of the PCB, 23.

Cold War State of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union with its satellite states, and the United States with its allies after World War II. A common historiography of the conflict begins with 1946, the year U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow cemented a U.S. foreign policy of containment of Soviet expansionism threatening strategically vital regions, and ending between the Revolutions of 1989 and the 1991 collapse of the USSR, which ended communism in Eastern Europe. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars.

Presidential candidates

Results

President

Vargas won a convincing victory, with 48.7% of the vote and close to an absolute majority of votes cast. Despite the UDN's claim that he was not constitutionally elected (they claimed that a candidate needed an absolute majority of the votes), Vargas was inaugurated President in January 1951. [5]

CandidatePartyVotes%
Getúlio Vargas Brazilian Labour Party 3,849,04048.7
Eduardo Gomes National Democratic Union 2,342,38429.7
Cristiano Machado Social Democratic Party (Brazil) 1,697,19321.5
João Mangabeira Brazilian Socialist Party 9,4660.1
Invalid/blank votes356,906–
Total8,254,989100
Registered voters/turnout11,455,14972.1
Source: Nohlen

Vice-President

CandidatePartyVotes%
Café Filho PSP-PTB 2,520,79035.76
Odilon Braga National Democratic Union 2,344,83133.26
Altino Arantes Republican Party 1,720,35424.40
Vitorino Freire Social Labour Party 453,1346.43
Alípio Correia Neto Brazilian Socialist Party 10,8000.15
Total7,049,909100

Chamber of Deputies

PartyVotes%Seats
Social Democratic Party 2,068,40527.0112
National Democratic Union 1,301,48917.081
Brazilian Labour Party 1,262,00016.551
Social Progressive Party 558,7927.324
PSD-PRP-PST 245,5433.2–
UDN-PR-PSP-PDC-PSB 240,5373.1–
Republican Party 216,2072.811
National Labor Party 211,0902.85
UDN-PR-PRP-PDC-PTB-PL 176,4322.3–
Social Labour Party 163,3412.19
PSD-PL 144,0241.9–
UDN-PST 103,3681.3–
UDN-PR 110,7331.4–
PSD-PR-PSP 94,6301.2–
UDN-PSP-PL-PST 86,3261.1–
PTB-PSP 84,4671.1–
UDN-PR-PST-PRP-PL 83,5301.1–
Labour Republican Party 73,5011.01
Party of Popular Representation 72,3970.92
UDN-PSD-PR-PL-PSP-PTB 67,9830.9–
Christian Democratic Party 56,9650.72
Liberator Party 55,3380.75
Brazilian Socialist Party 36,6380.51
Others148,4771.90
Invalid/blank votes578,783––
Total8,240,996100304
Registered voters/turnout11,445,14972.0–
Source: Nohlen

Senate

PartyVotes%Seats
Social Democratic Party 1,204,34915.46
Brazilian Labour Party 814,79610.55
National Democratic Union 749,9899.64
Republican Party 566,5207.32
Social Progressive Party 524,2616.73
Party of Popular Representation 244,7693.10
Social Labour Party 126,4371.61
Liberator Party 88,6141.10
Labour-Guiding Party 56,1800.70
Labour Republican Party 46,3250.60
Brazilian Socialist Party 15,4580.21
Others3,358,43843.10
Invalid/blank votes1,084,313––
Total8,880,44910022
Registered voters/turnout11,427,44177.7–
Source: Nohlen

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References

  1. ↑ Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume II, p173 ISBN   978-0-19-928358-3
  2. ↑ Nohlen, pp191-232
  3. ↑ Skidmore, TE: Politics in Brazil: 1930-1964, page 75. Oxford University Press, 2007.
  4. ↑ Skidmore, TE: Politics in Brazil: 1930-1964, page 77. Oxford University Press, 2007.
  5. ↑ Skidmore, TE: Politics in Brazil: 1930-1964, page 101. Oxford University Press, 2007.
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