Leonel Brizola

Leonel de Moura Brizola grew up poor in rural Rio Grande do Sul, trained as an engineer and rose in the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB) founded in the Vargas tradition. He was mayor of Porto Alegre and governor of Rio Grande do Sul, and he was the brother-in-law of President João Goulart. When Jânio Quadros resigned in 1961, he defied the military ministers who tried to block Goulart's inauguration and then opposed the parliamentary compromise that limited Goulart's powers. After the 1964 coup he lived in exile in Uruguay, the United States and Portugal until the 1979 amnesty. Denied the PTB label, he founded the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), joined the Socialist International, was twice elected governor of Rio de Janeiro and ran for president in 1989 and 1994.

Brizola remains a central reference for Brazilian laborism (trabalhismo). Supporters remember his defense of constitutional order in 1961, his investment in public education and his consistent opposition to the military regime, and the PDT continues to claim his legacy. Critics on the right and center argued that his calls to pressure Congress in 1963-1964 deepened the polarization that preceded the coup, and that his expropriations damaged relations with foreign investors. His Rio de Janeiro security policy remains disputed: opponents link it to the expansion of drug gangs, while defenders and several scholars say it reduced police abuse in poor communities and that organized crime had other causes.