Workers' Party Congress vote to uphold govt economic policy

The Workers' Party (PT) has rejected a proposed change in the economic strategy of President Dilma Rousseff's istration. During the closing meeting of the 5th National Workers' Party Congress on Saturday (Jun 13), a plenary session of the party voted down the proposal submitted by party .

All resolutions approved at the party congress will be in the final document, named the Salvador Letter after the city which hosted the event, Salvador, Bahia.

During the convention, the party also decided to continue its political alliance with PMDB and keep a previous decision by the party leadership to stop accepting campaign donations from corporations.

Most party rejected amendments criticizing Joaquim Levy's actions as Finance Minister and proposing the restoration of MF, a tax levied as a percentage of any financial transaction to help form a fund to provide resources for the healthcare system.

In the closing address, the Workers' Party chairman, Rui Falcão, called on party activists to President Dilma Rousseff. “The whole debate we have conducted showed that after this congress, PT will have to change further. Our party will no longer be the same, whether in its internal relations or by increasing our autonomy to create public policies regarding our government, which we , but want to advance. We want to provide sustenance, but we also want to press on and ensure we don't enter a recession period so that our country can resume its path of economic development,” Falcão said.

He also expressed solidarity with João Vaccari Neto, the former party treasurer, arrested as part of Federal Police's massive corruption crackdown, Operation Car Wash. “Vaccari was unfairly jailed, in a campaign clearly meant as an attempt to paint the Workers' Party as criminal. He did nothing but follow the party rules and our guidelines regarding financial revenues. Vaccari never appropriated a single penny for his own benefit, never engaged in any wrongdowing, and is being prosecuted because the actual target is to attack our party,” the chairman said.

At the convention opening on Thursday (June 11), President Dilma Rousseff said the government was brave to implement the fiscal adjustment and urged the activists to the austerity policies and help defend the government against criticism. According to Rousseff, economic changes are no step back in the government's commitment to the party's historical causes.

On Friday (June 12), on the second day of the Party Congress, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launched a campaign to raise funds for the party. The former president made the first symbolic donation and asked PT activists to resume their financial contributions to the party. The initiative started after the party announced it will no longer accept donations from private companies.

As part of the political reform being voted in Congress, a proposal to uphold corporate donations to political parties and ban corporate donations to candidates was approved in the first round of voting. Because they are part of a constitutional amendment, this and other bills in the political reform require two rounds of voting in the Chamber of Deputies and two in the Senate.

Translated by Mayra Borges