Workers' Party

The Workers' Party (Portuguese: Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) also known as the Labor 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 January 1, 2003, to August 31, 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 President twice (first on October 31, 2010, and then again on October 26, 2014) 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.

The party has been involved in a number of corruption scandals since Lula first came to power and saw its popular support plummet between 2015 and 2020, with presidential approval ratings falling from over 80% to 9% and successive reductions in all elected offices since 2014. The 2022 general election marked a turning point in that trajectory.