Opposition To Neoliberalism and Lula Administration
In the late 1980s, PCdoB supported the formation of a popular front to launch Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's candidacy for President. Since then, it has been a member of all electoral coalitions led by the Workers' Party (PT) at the federal level. It has also been allied to the PT in most states and capitals.
PCdoB has registered a steadily increase in its number of seats in the National Congress since the 1986 elections, the first parliamentary elections which the party contested. It elected 3 deputies in 1986, 5 in 1990, 10 in 1994, 7 in 1998, 12 in 2002, 13 in 2006, and 15 in 2010. In 2000, PCdoB elected its first mayor, Luciana Santos (Olinda). On 2006, it elected its first Senator ever, Inácio Arruda (although the party considers Luís Carlos Prestes, from PC-SBIC, its first Senator). He was followed by Vanessa Grazziotin on 2010. Since 2001, the party is led by Renato Rabelo (a former member of the Popular Action guerrilla group), which succeeded João Amazonas, which had been a leader of the party since the late 1940s and died in the following year.
With the victory of Lula in 2002, PCdoB became part of the federal government, occupying the Ministry of Sports; first with Agnelo Queiroz and later with Orlando Silva. This was the first time ever that a Communist occupied a Ministry of the Brazilian state. PCdoB's influence over the federal government was expanded in 2004, with the appointment of deputy Aldo Rebelo as political coordinator for the government. The following year, he assumed the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies with the resignation of Severino Cavalcanti. On November 16, 2006, Aldo Rebelo took over the presidency for one day, making him the only Communist President of Brazil. PCdoB also managed to get some participation in the Senate for a brief period of time, when Senator Leomar Quintanilha (formerly a member of PMDB) switched parties.
Although critical of the economic policy of the Lula administration, PCdoB maintained its support to PT. On 2006, when Lula sought his re-election, the party formalized its participation in his alliance. That same year, PCdoB achieved its first municipal administration of a state capital when PT's Marcelo Déda resigned in order to run as Governor of Sergipe and Edvaldo Nogueira took office as mayor of Aracaju. At the end of 2007, its divergences with PT increases, and PCdoB abandoned the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) trade union organization and, along with the Brazilian Socialist Party and other independent sections of the union movement, it founded the Central of Male and Female Workers of Brazil (CTB).
On November 21–23, 2008, PCdoB hosted the 10th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, which gathered 65 communist and labour parties from around the world, an event which had never been hosted in Latin America. That same year, it had its largest expansion on local representation, electing 40 mayors; some of them in big cities such as Aracaju, Olinda, Maranguape, and Juazeiro.
In 2005 Congress held its XI and recasts its status, among other innovations admitting for the first time the distinction between "affiliated" and "militant" - this was just the subsidiaries to help finance the party and party fulfills its obligations. This move is seen as a step toward the massification of the Communist Party of Brazil.
In 2009, the Twelfth Congress, PCdoB adopted a new Socialist Program, entitled Strengthening the Nation is the way, socialism is the way!, Which covers only the initial phase of transition to socialism, determining the collective party some issues for immediate action to medium term.
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