This article lists political parties in Brazil.
Brazil has a multi-party system with numerous political parties sharing the vote, in which no single party has a chance of gaining power alone, so that they must work with each other to form coalition governments. The ideologies of the different parties are not always universally adhered to, as many of them are in fact loose coalitions of local and individual leaderships.
Above the broad range of political parties in Brazilian Parliament since there is no election threshold, the Workers' Party (PT), the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) and the Democrats (DEM) together control the absolute majority of seats in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, and effectively have dominated Brazilian political landscape since the returning of democracy in 1985. Smaller parties often make alliances with at least one of these four major parties.
Since 1982 Brazilian political parties are given a number to make easier for illiterate people to vote. Initially, it was a one-digit number: 1 for PDS, 2 for PDT, 3 for PT, 4 for PTB, and 5 for PMDB. When it became clear that there was going to be more than nine parties, a two-digit number was assigned, with the first five parties having a "1" added to their former one-digit number (PDS becoming number 11, PDT 12, PT 13, PTB 14, and PMDB 15). Often political parties change their names but retain their number.
Read more about Political Parties In Brazil: Current Parties
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“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)
“Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)