Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Partido dos Trabalhadores" in Portuguese language version.
In Brazil, where the populist Workers’ Party held sway for 13 years until 2016
[During] the period between 2003 and 2016, [...] despite some undeniable advances and social gain [...] the left-wing populism of the Workers' Party governments under Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff represented a phenomenon fraught with contradictions. For example, while subsidies such as the Bolsa Família Programme flowed to disadvantaged populations [...] this form of clientelism did nothing to raise political awareness among workers, or to organise them politically. [...] From the outset, the Lula da Silva government (2003–2010) seemed to be more willing to make concessions to agribusiness, mining companies and other capitalist interests than to consistently defend the interests of subaltern groups
In some respects, petismo-lulismo represents a far purer populism [...] Populism can be politically and economically transformative, but it is socially conservative, reproducing rather than transcending social hierarchies and inequalities. The PT captivated the support ‘from below’ by promoting marginal income redistribution, innocuous for a transformation – much less an inversion – in power relations in society and the political system. Lula’s populism symbolically bent, but economically served the powers ‘from above’. [...] The PT’s 13-year period of governance prompted certain transformations in that direction [Lulism] [...] Lula did not attempt to dispute control over [...] accumulation within society. In his government, the dominant classes [...] benefited from structural macroeconomic policies, while the working class benefited from income redistribution measures with essential limits in scope, scale and sustainability, conditioned by the former. The benefits for the working class were short term, selective, restricted and assistentialist. The PT governed for large capital – for the already privileged and powerful. [...] As Anderson stresses, the image of a caretaker of the poor became Lula’s ‘most unshakeable political asset’ [...] Lula’s personal history and the social characteristics of the population he mobilized created a sense of a government ‘for and from below’. Lula promoted personal ties with the poor, but also catered to their real interests, enabling income redistribution that is a progressive and popular demand. This has been crucial to the way in which Lula and the PT secured and exerted power. However, Lula did not try to implement a model of accumulation from below. His populism therefore belongs to a new modality of populism of the left. [...] The extraordinary performance of agricultural exports – this time together with the extractive industry (oil, mining and gas) – partly explains the temporary lift of the policy incompatibility within the PT’s political formula. [...] This externally-driven growth cycle during Lula’s first administration unleashed a series of processes that led to a second and virtuous growth cycle [...] In this particular international context, primary commodity production and exports helped the state promote a concrete, albeit temporary and limited reversal between the neoliberal and neo-developmentalist policy effects on the economy and society, letting the latter stand out – the material basis of Lulism. However, they did not help transform the power asymmetries between the two essential classes in state decision-making, nor did they transform the inequalities in economic and social relations, which form the abstract basis supporting the argument for populism and the fetish of the neo-developmentalist project [...] state initiatives, such as the provision of subsidized loans from the National Development Bank (BNDES) to national corporations, or South-South investments and partnerships, targeted and boosted the primary sector.
Monica de Bolle [...] dates the populist shift to 2006, when President da Silva was hit with a vote-buying scandal known as “mensalão.” “After that he became much more populist,” she said. [...] The case for populism only intensified as Mr. da Silva fought to ensure the election of his anointed heir, Ms. Rousseff
