Throughout its history, Brazil has struggled to build a democratic and egalitarian society because its origins as a plantation colony and the strong influence of slavery.

Empire

In 1822 the Prince Pedro de Alcântara, son of Portuguese King, D. João VI, proclaimed the independence. He was the first Emperor (Pedro I) until his resignation in 1831 in favor of his elder son. Due to his young age (five years) a regency was established and the country had its first elections, though vote was still restricted to a minority of the population.

Old Republic

In 1889, Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca declared the republic, by a coup d’état. Until 1930, Brazilian republic was formally a democracy, although the power was concentrated in the hands of powerful land owners.

Vargas Years

In 1930, a bloodless coup led Getúlio Vargas to power. For about 15 years, he controlled the country’s politics, with a brief three-year constitutional interregnum from 1934 to 1937. A longer, heavier regime, the (Estado Novo) had loose ties with European fascism and spanned the years 1938 to 1945.

Populist Years

Like most of Latin America, Brazil experienced times of political instability after the Second World War. When Vargas was ousted from the presidency in another bloodless coup d’état, in 1945, a new and modern constitution was passed and the country had its first experience with an effective and widespread democracy. But the mounting tension between populist politicians (like Vargas himself and, later, Janio Quadros) and the right led to a crisis that ultimately brought up the military coup d’état in 1964, now known to have been supported by the American Central Intelligence Agency.

Military Dictatorship

In 1964 a military-led coup d’état deposed the democratically-elected president of Brazil, João Goulart. Between 1964 and 1985, Brazil was governed by the military, with a two-party system, with a pro-government National Renewal Alliance Party (ARENA) and an opposition Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB).

Thousands of politicians (including former president Juscelino Kubitschek) had their political rights suspended, and military-sanctioned indirect elections were held for most elected positions until political liberalization during the government of João Figueiredo.

New Republic (1985-1990)

In 1985, the military were defeated in an election according to the scheme they had set up—as a consequence of the loss of political support among the elites. The opposition candidate, Tancredo Neves, was elected President, but did not take office before he died of natural causes.

Fearing a political vacuum—that might stifle the democratic effort—Neves’ supporters urged vice-president, José Sarney to take the oath and govern the country. Tancredo Neves had said that his election and the demise of military régime would create a “New Republic” and Sarney’s term of government is often referred to by this name.

Sarney’s government was disastrous in almost every field. The ongoing economic recession and the soaring external debt drained the country’s assets while ravaging inflation (which later turned into hyperinflation) demonetized the currency and prevented any stability.

In an attempt to revolutionize the economy and defeat inflation, Sarney carried on an ambitious “heterodox” economic plan (Cruzado) in 1986, which included price controls, default on the external debts and reduction of salaries. The plan seemed successful for some months, but it soon caused wholesale shortages of consumer goods (especially of easily exportable goods like meat, milk, automobiles, grains, sugar and alcohol) and the appearance of a black market in which such goods were sold for higher prices.

Sarney used the popularity ensued by the apparent success of the plan to secure the hugest electoral win in Brazilian history: the party he had just joined, Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), won 26 out of 27 states and more than 3,000 municipalities.

Just after the elections, Sarney’s “corrections” to the economy failed to control inflation and the public perception that he had used an artificial control of inflation to win the elections proved to be his undoing: he never recovered his popularity and was plagued by strong criticism from most sectors of society until the end of his term.

Despite popular rejection, Sarney managed to extend his term from four to five years and exerted pressure on the Constitutional Assembly that was drafting the new constitution to abort the adoption of Parliamentarism.

Collor Government (1990-1992)

In 1989 Fernando Collor de Mello was elected president for the term from 1990-1994. The elections were marked by unanimous condemnation of José Sarney, with all candidates trying to keep distance from him.
Collor made some very bold statements, like saying that the Brazilian industry (of which the Brazilians used to be very proud) was mostly obsolete and polluting or that defaulting the debt was equal to not paying the rent.

He also took quite revolutionary measures, like reducing the number of ministries to only 12 and naming Zélia Cardoso de Mello Minister of Economy (the highest position so far enjoyed by a woman in Brazil) or removing existing barriers to importing of goods.

His inflation control plan was based on an attempt to control prices and a complicated currency conversion process that prevented people from cashing their bank accounts for 18 months.

All of this made him quite unpopular and denied him support in the parliament that he needed since his own party held few seats. At the beginning of his third year in office, he resigned as a result of in a huge corruption scandal. The charges against him would later be dropped, some on mere technicalities, some for actually being irrelevant or false.

Collor desperately tried to resist impeachment by rallying the support of the youth and of the lower classes, but his call for help was answered by massive popular demonstrations, led mostly by students, demanding his resignation.

Itamar Government (1992-1994)

In 1992, the vice-president, Itamar Franco, took office as president and managed to evade the most feared consequences of Collor’s downfall. He had to face a country with hyper-inflation, high levels of misery and unemployment. Far-left organizations were trying to turn the anti-Collor campaign into a wider revolutionary fight to overthrow the regime.

Itamar finally granted full powers to his Minister of Economy, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, so the minister could launch the Plano Real, a new economic plan that seemed to be just the same as the many unsuccessful plans launched by Sarney, Collor and their military predecessor. But the Real was a success, and terminated inflation in a few months.

FHC Government (1995-2003)

In 1994, Cardoso launched his Plano Real, a successful economic reform that managed to permanently rid the country of the excessive inflation that had plagued it for more than forty years. The plan consisted of replacing the discredited old currency (cruzeiro and cruzeiro real) and pegging its value temporarily to the United States dollar.

Inflation – which had become a fact of Brazilian life – was cut dramatically, a change that the Brazilians took years to get used to. Because of the success of Plano Real, Cardoso was chosen by his party to run for president and, with the strong support of Franco, eventually won, beating Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who had emerged as the favorite only one year earlier.

Cardoso’s term was marked by other major changes in Brazilian politics and economy. Public services and state-owned companies were privatized (some for values supposedly too cheap according to his adversaries), the strong real made it easy to import goods, forcing Brazilian industry to modernize and compete (which had the side effect of causing many of them to be bought by foreign companies).

During his first term, a constitutional amendment was passed to enable a sitting Executive chief to run for re-election, after which he again beat Lula in 1998.

Lula Government (2003-2011)

In 2002, at his fourth attempt, Lula was elected president. In part his victory was derived from the considerable unpopularity of Cardoso’s second term, which failed to decrease the economic inequality, and in part from a softening of his and the party’s radical stance, including a vice-presidential candidate from the Liberal Party, acceptance of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) accord agreed to by the previous government and a line of discourse friendly to the financial markets.

Despite some achievements in solving part of the country’s biggest problems, his term was plagued by multiple corruption scandals that rocked his cabinet, forcing some members to resign their posts.

In 2006 Lula regained part of his popularity and ran for re-election. After almost winning on the first round, he won the run-off against Geraldo Alckmin from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), by a margin of 20 million votes.

In 2010, Lula’s handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff, was elected to the Presidency.