Defunct political party in Brazil
The
Brazilian Labour Party
(
Portuguese
:
Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro
, PTB) was a
populist
political party in
Brazil
founded in 1945 by supporters of President
Getulio Vargas
. It was dismantled by the
Institutional Act Number Two
in 1965 during the
military dictatorship in Brazil
.
History
[
edit
]
The party was founded by followers of President Getulio Vargas on May 15, 1945, during the final days of his
Estado Novo
. It grew rapidly under the leadership of Vargas, the most important Brazilian
politician
of the early to mid-20th century. Its main goal was to prevent a growth of
Communist Party
membership among urban workers.
[1]
According to Vargas himself, the party was created to "serve as a buffer between the unions and the communists."
[2]
PTB's support came from the
trade unions
controlled by the Ministry of Labour, and its trump card was the prestige of Getulio Vargas, its honorary chairman, which introduced social and labor legislation in the country.
[1]
From 1945 to 1962, PTB was the third force in Brazilian politics, after the
Social Democratic Party
(PSD) and the
National Democratic Union
(UDN), but it became more popular than the UDN in the 1962 Congressional elections. In 1950, Vargas was elected to a second term through PTB. Vargas committed suicide in 1954, and his heir
Joao Goulart
became the central figure in the party along with the
populist
Leonel Brizola
.
Since the party was a close ally of PSD, also founded by supporters of the late Vargas, it remained in power when
Juscelino Kubitschek
was elected President in 1955. Goulart was elected Vice President in 1955 and 1960, becoming President in 1961 with the resignation of
Janio Quadros
. PTB was in power again, but Goulart was overthrown by a military-led
coup d'etat
in 1964. Various PTB figures were removed from the
National Congress
, and all political parties, including PTB, were dissolved on October 27, 1965.
[1]
Nearly all of the party merged with the bulk of the PSD to form the
Brazilian Democratic Movement
, the only opposition party permitted for the first decade of the military dictatorship.
A
new PTB
, this time a
centre-right
party, was established by
Ivete Vargas
, Getulio's niece, in 1980, with the end of the artificial two-party system imposed by the military regime.
[1]
Brizola led the majority of the PTB's former followers into the
Democratic Labour Party
.
[3]
References
[
edit
]