Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

Not to be confused with Liberal Party (1985–2006) or Liberal Party (1831–1889).

The Liberal Party (Portuguese: Partido Liberal, PL) is a centre-right to right-wing political party in Brazil. From its foundation in 2006 until 2019, it was called the Party of the Republic (Portuguese: Partido da República, PR).

Liberal Party Partido Liberal
President	Valdemar Costa Neto^[1]
Honorary President	Jair Bolsonaro^[1]
General Secretary	Mariucia Tozatti^[1]
First Treasurer	Jucivaldo Salazar^[1]
Founded	26 October 2006; 16 years ago (26 October 2006)^[2]
Registered	19 December 2006; 16 years ago (19 December 2006)^[3]
Merger of	Liberal PRONA
Headquarters	Edifício Liberty Mall Asa Norte, Brasília, Federal District
Think tank	Instituto Fundação Alvaro Valle^[4]
Youth wing	PL Jovem
Women's wing	PL Mulher
Membership (2023)	760,995^[5]
Ideology	Social conservatism^[6]^[7]^[8] Right-wing populism^[9]
Political position	Centre-right^[14] to right-wing^[18] Minority: Far-right^[19]^[20]
Colours	Green   Yellow   Blue   White
Slogan	"Liberty, Truth and Faith, for the good of Brazil."
TSE Identification Number	22
Governorships	2 / 27
Mayors	348 / 5,568
Federal Senate	12 / 81
Chamber of Deputies	99 / 513
Mercosur Parliament	7 / 38
State Assemblies	129 / 1,024
City Councillors	3,467 / 56,810
Party flag
Website
partidoliberal.org.br
Politics of Brazil Political parties Elections

The party was founded in 2006 as a merger of the 1985 Liberal Party and the Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order (PRONA),^[9] as a big tent, centre-right party,^[21][11] and is considered part of the Centrão, a bloc of parties without consistent ideological orientation that support different sides of the political spectrum in order to gain political privileges.^[21][22][23] In 2021, it became the base of the then-president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, for the 2022 Brazilian general election. This led to many of his supporters joining the party, which thereby became the largest bloc in the National Congress of Brazil.^[24]

History

The Party of the Republic was founded on 26 October 2006, by the merger of the old Liberal Party — which initially started as a classical liberal party,^[9] but slowly shifted towards social conservatism after it became influenced by evangelicals^[9] — and the Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order (Partido da Reedificação da Ordem Nacional, PRONA) — a far-right nationalist party.^[25][26] The merger was performed in order to surpass the Electoral threshold of 5%,^[9][a] but also as a rebranding as the Liberal Party was heavily implicated in the Mensalão scandal.^[9][28]

Historically the party was a pragmatic party of business interests, supporting the candidacies of Lula and Dilma from the Workers' Party (PT) for the sake of moderating their presidencies. It generally supported a form of Lulism, which had less economic regulation. As such, the Party of the Republic was considered part of the Centrão.^[22][23] PR's predecessor, the Liberal Party, was heavily involved in the Mensalão — a vote-buying scheme done by the Workers' Party in order to gain support in the National Congress,^[28] and Lula's Vice President José Alencar was a member of the old PL.

During the 2010 elections, the Party of the Republic focused on the parliamentary elections; it won 41 of the 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 4 of the 81 Senate seats. One of PR's elected politicians was professional humorist and professional clown Tiririca, who became the State of São Paulo's most voted representative with more than one million votes, and due to Brazil's proportional voting system, Tiririca thus supported PR in electing a sizeable amount of representatives.^[29]

Sergio Victor Tamer, founder of the Party of the Republic, was the party's president from 2006 to 2014. Alfredo Nascimento succeeded Tamer as president of the PR until April 2016, when he resigned due to party leadership not supporting the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. However, 26 of the PR's MPs did vote for her impeachment.^[30]

After that move by its MPs, the party took a more rightward turn away from its bipartisan past and supported Geraldo Alckmin's failed campaign in the 2018 Brazilian presidential election.

On 7 May 2019, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) voted to approve a motion of the party to change its name back to Liberal Party (PL).^[31][32] According to party leadership, the change was done in order to return to the party's roots as body defending economic liberalism, Free market and low intervention of the state in the economy. The social positions of the party remained socially conservative, however.^[33] Other specialists point it out as part of a national tendency of parties in Brazil rebranding in order to get better perception from the electorate due a process of loss of trust caused by the Brazilian political crisis,^[34] and also riding a wave of pro-liberalism sentiment in Brazil.^[33]

The Liberal Party provokes controversy in 2020 by nominating an openly neo-Nazi activist as a municipal candidate in the town of Pomerode.^[35]

On 30 November 2021, President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro and his son Senator Flávio Bolsonaro — who were previously affiliated with the Social Liberal Party (PSL) and left it, attempting to create the Alliance for Brazil party with no avail^[36] — joined the PL in preparation for the 2022 Brazilian general election (as presidential candidates must be affiliated with a political party). He had previously considered returning to the Progressists (PP),^[37] the Social Christian Party (PSC), Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), as well negotiation with number of other smaller and/or right-wing parties.^[38] Bolsonaro's affiliation to the PL has been pointed out by analysts as a consolidation of an alliance with the Centrão.^[39]

In the 2022 general election, the party has formed a presidential ticket and many gubernatorial tickets with a hard right coalition of the Republicans and the Progressitas (PP). The election was a great success to the party, resulting on PL becoming the largest bloc in the National Congress of Brazil with 99 seats and the Federal Senate with 13 seats.^[40] According to some analysts, the party has been divided between two wide factions: one from traditional Centrão politicians loyal to party president Valdemar Costa Neto, and a Bolsonarist one, composed by about two-thirds of the PL's elected bench, coming from his followers from PSL.^[41][42] In an interview, Neto revealed he fears that in case Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is elected president, there will be a split in the party as the traditional faction might want to align themselves with a possible PT government, while the Bolsonarist branch will form an opposition.^[42]

Ideology

The Liberal Party is a big tent conservative party. The Liberal Party are described as centre-right or right-wing.^[21][b]

Though previously a party of national liberalism, before its merger with PRONA, the party has increasingly been affiliated with the anti-democratic right in Brazil. This has come as a result of the party's joining around the political philosophy of Jair Bolsonaro, who was initially affiliated with the PSL and other socially conservative parties. With the questioning of democracy, foreign policy, and the anti-democratic statements of Bolsonaro, the party seems to have re-embraced some of the tendencies of the head of PRONA Eneas Carneiro, a noted supporter of LaRoucheism, the previous military dictatorship, and a right wing opposition to neoliberalism.^[37]

Generally the party is right-wing populist, economically liberal, but socially anti liberal and pro-Evangelical, aligning with the ideology of Bolsonaro. The party is agrarian, pro-military, and pro-life. The party promotes a generally more economically open form of Brazilian nationalism than Carneiro.^[44] The party has frequently supported Bolsonaro's attacks on the media and the election system in Brazil.^[45][46][47]

Notable members

 

Jair Bolsonaro, a recent party member and President of Brazil visiting the Federal Senate

• Jair Bolsonaro, former army captain, Federal Deputy for Rio de Janeiro from 1991 to 2018, and President of Brazil from 2019 to 2022
• Flávio Bolsonaro, entrepreneur, Federal Deputy for Rio de Janeiro from 2003 to 2019, and Senator for Rio de Janeiro since 2019
• Tiririca, comedian, singer-songwriter, and Federal Deputy for São Paulo since 2011
• Romário, football player and Senator for Rio de Janeiro
• Marco Feliciano, pastor and Federal Deputy for São Paulo since 2011
• Valdemar Costa Neto, former Federal Deputy for São Paulo from 1991 to 2005 and from 2007 to 2013 and current Party President
• Onyx Lorenzoni, veterinarian, cabinet minister, and politician from Rio Grande do Sul

Electoral results

Presidential elections

Year	President	Vice-president	Coalition	Results
2010	Dilma Rousseff^[c]	Michel Temer^[d]	For Brazil to keep changing^[e]	55,752,529 (56.05%)	Won
2014	Dilma Rousseff^[f]	Michel Temer^[g]	With the Power of the People^[h]	54,495,459 (51.64%)	Won
2018	Geraldo Alckmin^[i]	Ana Amélia Lemos^[j]	To unite Brazil^[k]	5,096,350 (4.76%)	Lost
2022	Jair Bolsonaro^[l]	Walter Braga Netto^[l]	For the good of Brazil^[m]	58,197,923 (49.1%)	Lost

Legislative elections

Election	Chamber of Deputies				Federal Senate				Status
	Votes	%	Seats	+/–	Votes	%	Seats	+/–
2010	7,311,655	7.57	42 / 513	New	4,649,024	2.73	4 / 81	New	Coalition
2014	5,635,519	5.79	34 / 513	8	696,462	0.78	4 / 81	0	Coalition
2018	5,224,591	5.31	33 / 513	1	3,130,082	1.83	2 / 81	2	Coalition
2022	18,228,958	16.54	99 / 513	66	25,278,764	24.86	13 / 81	11	Opposition

See also

• Fiscal conservatism
• Liberty Korea Party / People Power Party (South Korea) — the country's mainstream conservative party.
• Liberal Party of Australia — a similarly named party with a conservative position
• Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) — another similarly named party with a right-wing position
• List of political parties in Brazil

Notes

1. The Electoral threshold (Cláusula de Barreira) was first passed as a law in 1995 for the 2006 Brazilian general election, but a coalition of smaller parties petitioned the Supreme Federal Court to block it alleging it was inconstitutional.^[27] The electoral threshold only started taking place after the 2018 Brazilian general election.
2. Experts describe Jair Bolsonaro, a former Liberal Party candidate in the 2022 presidential election in Brazil, as a 'far-right', but at the same time, the Liberal Party is described as a 'centre-right'.^[43]
3. PT
4. PMDB
5. PT, PMDB, PR, PSB, PDT, PCdoB, PSC, PRB, PTC and PTN
6. PT
7. PMDB
8. PT, PMDB, PSD, PP, PR, PROS, PDT, PCdoB and PRB
9. PSDB
10. PP
11. PSDB, PP, PTB, PSD, PRB, PR, DEM, Solidarity and PPS
12. PL
13. PL, Republicans and PP

References

1. "Membros da Executiva Nacional". Partido Liberal. 9 February 2019. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
2. "História do Partido da República (até 2014)". Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
3. "Partidos políticos registrados no TSE". TSE. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
4. ":: Fundação Alvaro Valle ::". institutoalvarovalle.org.br. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
5. TSE. "Estatísticas do eleitorado – Eleitores filiados". Retrieved 26 August 2023.
6. Gustavo A. Flores-Macias, ed. (2012). After Neoliberalism?: The Left and Economic Reforms in Latin America. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-19989167-2. …Lula's PT government enjoyed the congressional support of the conservative Liberal Party (PL), the vice… system is fragmented but in disarray—the comparatively institutionalized party system in Brazil makes fragmentation more…
7. Kristin N. Wylie, ed. (2018). Party Institutionalization and Women's Representation in Democratic Brazil. Cambridge University Press. p. 168. ISBN 978-1-108429795. …While at the helm of the small conservative Liberal Party (PL), Pedrosa's brother suggested she help the party fill the 30 percent…
8. Lee J. Alston; Marcus André Melo; Bernardo Mueller, eds. (2016). Brazil in Transition: Beliefs, Leadership, and Institutional Change. Princeton University Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-40088094-2. To placate the suspicions of the business elites, Lula invited as his running mate a prominent politician from the conservative Liberal Party.
9. Brasil, CPDOC-Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação História Contemporânea do. "PARTIDO LIBERAL (PL)". CPDOC - Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 18 October 2022.
10. "O que significa esquerda, direita e centro na política?".
11. "Bolsonaro to join center-right PL party to take on leftist Lula". Reuters. 8 November 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
12. Gomez Bruera, Hernan (2013). Lula, the Workers' Party and the Governability Dilemma in Brazil. Routledge. p. 77.
13. "Brazil's Bolsonaro officially joins centre-right Liberal Party". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
14. ^{[10][11][12][13]}
15. "Partidos em números: PP e PL". Pindograma. 8 December 2020. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
16. Congresso em Foco (3 March 2021). "Radar do Congresso: Governismo". Retrieved 17 March 2021.
17. "Bolsonaro to join right-wing Liberal Party for re-election campaign". The Brazilian Report. 8 November 2021. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
18. ^[15][16][17]
19. "Brazil's Bolsonaro officially joins centre-right Liberal Party". Al Jazeera. 30 November 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2022. Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has officially joined the centre-right Liberal Party (PL) in advance of next year's presidential elections in the South American nation.
20. "Rio vows to revitalize two crime-racked slums". France 24. 22 January 2022. Retrieved 23 January 2022. "After what happened, we had to intervene," said Castro, a member of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's Liberal Party.
21. joaogado (8 December 2020). "Partidos em números: PP e PL". Pindograma. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
22. "Bolsonaro se filia ao PL e volta ao centrão em evento com ataques a Lula e Moro". Folha de S.Paulo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 30 November 2021. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
23. "'Vocês votaram num cara do Centrão', diz Bolsonaro sobre críticas por ingresso no PL". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 10 January 2022. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
24. "Bancada dos partidos — Portal da Câmara dos Deputados". www.camara.leg.br. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
25. Couto, André. "Partido de Reedificação da Ordem Nacional (PRONA)". Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC) (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 21 November 2018.
26. "Partido da Republica (PR)". CPDOC - Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 10 September 2022.
27. "Folha Online - Brasil - STF derruba cláusula de barreira - 07/12/2006". www1.folha.uol.com.br.
28. "Christina diz que presidente do PL concebeu o "mensalão" - Notícias". Portal da Câmara dos Deputados (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 18 October 2022.
29. "O "Efeito Tiririca" e a importância da votação para deputado". Agência Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). 4 October 2018. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
30. "Partido da República" (in Brazilian Portuguese). 21 June 2018. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
31. "Aprovada alteração do nome do Partido da República (PR) para Partido Liberal (PL)" (in Portuguese). Tribunal Superior Eleitoral. 7 May 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
32. "Partidos políticos registrados no TSE". Tribuna Superior Eleitoral.
33. News, Campo Grande. "PR volta a ser PL para retornar às suas origens, anuncia deputado". Campo Grande News (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 18 October 2022. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
34. "Dez partidos políticos mudaram de nome nos últimos quatro anos | A Gazeta". www.agazeta.com.br (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 18 October 2022.
35. "Dans le Brésil de Jair Bolsonaro, des néonazis de plus en plus visibles et décomplexés". Le Monde.fr (in French). 11 October 2021.
36. "Idealizado por Bolsonaro, partido Aliança pelo Brasil acaba por falta de assinaturas". CNN Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 3 October 2022.
37. "Win or lose, Jair Bolsonaro poses a threat to Brazilian democracy". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
38. "Bolsonaro negocia com DC, PMN e PSC e deve anunciar novo partido este mês". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 8 March 2021. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
39. "Bolsonaro se filia ao PL e retoma 'casamento' com o centrão". noticias.uol.com.br (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 27 October 2022.
40. "Direita mantém crescimento, esquerda oscila negativamente e centro afunda". JOTA Info (in Brazilian Portuguese). 3 October 2022. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
41. "Cerca de dois terços da bancada eleita do PL são mais Bolsonaro que Valdemar". www.metropoles.com (in Brazilian Portuguese). 21 October 2022. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
42. "Valdemar prevê racha no PL se Lula vencer". www.metropoles.com (in Brazilian Portuguese). 28 October 2022. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
43. "Brazil's Next Elections Bring the Risk of Social Unrest". New Lines Institute. 11 August 2022. Retrieved 3 February 2023. Brazil's general election will be held Oct. 2. Even though the official presidential campaign period begins Aug. 16, incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, of the center-right Liberal Party, and former President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva of the Workers' Party are the presumptive frontrunners. ... The Brazilian constituency and the international public know the frontrunners well. Bolsonaro, who is now running as a member of the center-right Liberal Party after being forced to join a political party to run for re-election, aligns closer with a far-right political ideology.
44. "Partido de Reedificacção de Ordem Nacional (PRONA)". CPDOC - Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 14 September 2022.
45. Fishman, Andrew (2 June 2022). "Lula Leads, but Bolsonaro Could Still Win Reelection in Brazil". The Intercept. Retrieved 7 October 2022.
46. "Citizens' manifesto declares Brazilian democracy facing 'immense danger'". the Guardian. 11 August 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
47. "Brazilians fear return to dictatorship as 'deranged' Bolsonaro trails in polls". the Guardian. 9 August 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2022.

Preceded by 21 – BCP (PCB)

Numbers of Brazilian Official Political Parties 22 – LP (PL)

Succeeded by 23 – Citizenship (Cidadania)