Brazil Returns to Civilian Rule After Two Decades
- Date
- 1985
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Latin America (Brazil)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
Brazil ended 21 years of military dictatorship in 1985 when an electoral college chose Tancredo Neves as president on 15 January, the first civilian elected to the office since the 1964 coup.
Neves fell gravely ill on the eve of his inauguration and died on 21 April without ever being sworn in; his running mate José Sarney assumed the presidency instead, an anticlimactic handover that nonetheless completed the transition. The military had governed Latin America's largest nation through censorship, torture, and forced disappearances, and its exit followed the huge "Diretas Já" street campaign demanding direct elections. Sarney inherited runaway inflation and a crushing foreign debt, and his government struggled to stabilise the economy, but the shift restored civilian institutions and set the stage for the 1988 constitution and direct presidential elections in 1989. Brazil's negotiated, gradual democratisation became a reference point for the wider retreat of military regimes across South America during the decade, closing one of the region's longest authoritarian chapters and returning roughly 130 million people to civilian governance.
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Empires active in 1985
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Yugoslavia1918 CE – 1992 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika1985–1991 (from 11 March 1985)
- Fall of the Berlin Wall9 November 1989
- Revolutions of 1989 across Eastern Europe1989 (Autumn of Nations)
- German reunification3 October 1990
- Dissolution of the Soviet UnionAugust–December 1991
- Iranian RevolutionJanuary–February 1979
Further reading
The wider story
The Americas: A Hemispheric History
Brisk single-volume history of the whole hemisphere since European contact.
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