Social Christian Party (Brazil)

Social Christian Party Partido Social Cristão
President	Everaldo Pereira
Founded	1985[1]
Headquarters	Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, Brazil
Membership	421,790[2]
Ideology	Liberal conservatism Christian democracy Social conservatism Economic liberalism
Political position	Centre-right
Colours	Green & white
TSE Identification Number	20
Seats in the Chamber of Deputies	13 / 513
Seats in the Senate	1 / 81
Local government	1,431 / 56,810
Website
http://www.psc.org.br/
Politics of Brazil Political parties Elections

Pastor Everaldo Pereira (left)

The Social Christian Party (Portuguese: Partido Social Cristão, PSC) is a conservative political party in Brazil.

At the legislative elections, 2010, PSC obtained 12 seats in the chamber of deputies and kept this number at 2014 legislative elections.^[3]

History and ideology

The party was founded in 1985, as a centrist, Christian democratic party. The party supported the winning candidature of Fernando Collor de Mello in the presidential election of 1989, and in 1990 the party winning the election of the government of Alagoas, the home state of president Collor. The party, however, turned against the president when the corruption scandals involving him and his campaign chief PC Farias. The party supported the Impeachment of Fernando Collor. However, from 1994, the party suffered a great decline: Its candidates often ended the presidential elections in the bottom positions, ahead only from far-left parties which originated themselves from rebel wings of the Workers Party with null popular support, and didn't get more than 3 representatives elected in the three subsequent elections.

2006 marked an inflexion point in the party: Ratinho Junior, the son of the popular TV show host Ratinho, joined the party and ran for the Brazilian Chamber of deputies. The party made significant electoral gains in his home state of Paraná thanks to Ratinho's influence. The party won 9 seats in the Chamber, compared to 1 in 2002. With the support of the Workers Party and the arrival of Marco Feliciano, the party made further gains in 2010, being able to elect 17 representatives.

In 2013, the party gained national attention when Feliciano was selected to head the Human Rights commission. The selection caused outrage in some sectors of Brazilian media and society, because in the past Feliciano made declarations which were considered as racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Catholic and against religions of African origin. Despite the great campaign against him, which had violent protests and even blocking the functioning of the commission, Feliciano did not give up the presidency of the commission, fulfilling his mandate until 2014.

In the same year, the pastor Everaldo Pereira, chairman of the party, announced his will to run in 2014 presidential election with a conservative program in social issues and a quasi-libertarian program regarding economics, with the privatization of state-owned companies like the oil giant Petrobrás and drastic tax cuts. The party received new, affluent conservative members of the Brazilian society, as the TV news commentator Paulo Martins and Eduardo Bolsonaro, federal police officer and son of Jair Bolsonaro, which was considered as a right-turn in the party ideology. However, Everaldo's lack of charisma, coupled with revelations that he was a former aid of Democratic Labour Party leadership in the state of Rio de Janeiro, a left-wing populist party which was the main left-wing Brazilian party prior the ascension of PT, and a supposed "non-understanding" of his proposals by the candidate, which led accusations that his candidature was opportunistic and was only trying to fill a gap on the underrepresented Brazilian right-wing, lead to a small lost of votes for the party in the chamber of deputies and only a 5th position in the elections. It was, however, the best party result in a presidential election.

In 2016, the members of the Bolsonaro family in the state of Rio de Janeiro joined the party. The father, Jair Bolsonaro, a conservative hardliner, broke with his former party, Progressive Party, with the emergence scandals of corruption, lack of support of his presidential project and support of 2014 candidature of Dilma Rousseff by the party, which he strongly opposed. His sons, Carlos and Flavio Bolsonaro, were seeking a major election - Senate or State governorship - in 2018, and the mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro in 2016, respectively. Flavio ended the elections in 4th, out the runoff, and blamed media, in special the newspaper Folha de São Paulo and magazine Veja for his defeat. The first one for disseminating polls that were accused of being biased against the candidate, through the Datafolha, its opinion polling institute. The second for encouraging a "tactical vote" on PMDB candidate Pedro Paulo against PSOL candidate Marcelo Freixo to prevent the left from reaching the second round based on opinion polls. The polls put Flavio long behind Pedro Paulo and below candidates like Indio da Costa from the liberal Social Democratic Party, Carlos Osorio, candidate of the centrist PSDB, and statistically tied with Jandira Feghali, the lulist candidate from the PCdoB. The Candidate, however, ended with only 2 percentage points below Pedro Paulo, 5 points ahead of Indio and Osório and more than 10 points ahead Feghali. Carlos was the most voted alderman of the city. He, concurring for a legislative seat in a open list system, managed to get more votes than Feghali.

Many conservative members, however, let the party accusing the national direction of opportunism and lack of principles; Paulo Martins left the party and joined PSDB; Bolsonaro had an open feud with Everaldo, because interference in regional directories. Bolsonaro public directed heavy criticism to Everaldo especially for his interference in the local directory of São Luis do Maranhão, in favor of an alliance with PCdoB; Bolsonaro is a long-time and irreconcilable enemy of the party. Although Feliciano did not openly criticize Everaldo, he sought and was openly sought by other parties for the 2018 election. In 2017, the national leadership of the party made a move towards giving up of the right wing of the party and to return the original ideological proposal of the Party, closer to the political center and Christian democracy, rather than the strong right-wing and conservative proposals which has dominated the party since 2013. In 2018, Feliciano left the party and joined Podemos

Electoral results

At the legislative elections of 6 October 2002, the party won 1 out of 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and no seats in the Senate. At the legislative elections of October 1, 2006, the party won 9 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

References

External links

• Official web site (in portuguese)