1966–8: Searching for Identity

Abstract

As recounted in Chapter 1, the MDB started operating as a legal opposition party in early 1966, the fourth and final year of the legislature of parliamentarians elected in 1962. To get used to the new party framework under which the parliamentarians had to carry on their political activity was the MDB’s main problem. This would affect the party’s performance in its first year of existence, as we will show in the first section of this chapter where some events in which the MDB was engaged are examined. In 1967 a new legislature composed of parliamentarians elected for the first time on ARENA and the MDB tickets, was inaugurated. This legislative period up to the decreeing of the Institutional Act Number 5 in 1968 is also discussed in this chapter. Its second section will therefore focus in detail a particular event in which the MDB was involved, and that was the apparent cause of the political and military crisis of 1968: the Marcio Moreira Alves episode.