What became of the Workers’ Party?

Of the last five presidential elections in Brazil, four were won by a single political party. The Workers’ Party has been the single largest force in the country’s politics since the turn of the millennium, governing Brazil for 14 years, uninterrupted.

Its reign ended in 2016, when President Dilma Rousseff was impeached by Congress after being caught doctoring the federal budget. Two years later, its hopes of returning to the presidency were dashed as the party lost out to far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro.

In the wake of the result, the first time the Workers’ Party had been defeated at a presidential election since 1998, losing candidate Fernando Haddad promised an opposition which would “defend the interests of the Brazilian people,” and it was believed the party would do everything in its power to constrain the incoming Jair Bolsonaro government.

The reality has been quite different. In the heated political debates of 2019—the elections for House Speaker and Senate President, the proposal to reform the pension system—the Workers’ Party has been nowhere to be seen.

Its lack of protagonism is made even more strange by the fact the party was not decimated in the 2018 elections—certainly not to the extent of other traditional political parties such as the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) and Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) party. “In local elections, the Workers’ Party...