The Workers' Party (Portuguese: Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) 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 1 January 2003 to 31 August 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 twice (first on 31 October 2010, and then again on 26 October 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.
Both born among the opposition to the 1964 coup d'état and the subsequent military dictatorship, PT and the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) were the biggest adversaries in contemporary Brazilian politics from 1994 to 2014, with their candidates finishing either first or second on the ballot in each presidential election in that period. The Worker's Party won five presidential elections since the country reinstated democracy, and came in second in every other election held in that time.
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.
The party symbols are a five-pointed red star inscribed with the initials "PT" in the center; a red flag with a white star also with the initials in the center; and the Workers Party's anthem. Its Superior Electoral Court (TSE) identification number is 13. Members and sympathisers of the party are known as "Petistas".
