Plínio Soares de Arruda Sampaio (São Paulo, July 26, 1930) is an intellectual and Brazilian political activist, currently affiliated to Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) and candidate for the presidency of the Federative Republic of Brazil in 2010.
Graduated in law by University of São Paulo School of Law in 1954, he fought in the Catholic University Youth, of which he was president, and in the Popular Action, two leftist organizations.
He was a prosecutor, deputy at the 1988 Constituent Assembly and current hold a chair at the Brazilian Association for Land Reform (ABRA), institution that fights for land reform in Brazil. He also directed the weekly newspaper Correio da Cidadania.
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Arruda Sampaio entry in public life when Carvalho Pinto was the governor of the state of São Paulo (1959–1963). At this time he was appointed for the sub-head of the Civil State House. In 1959, a year after the election of Carvalho Pinto, Arruda Sampaio became coordinator of the action plan of the government, a position he held until 1962.
He was also secretary of legal affairs, and between 1961 and 1962 he worked at the town hall of São Paulo as secretary of the interior and justice. In 1962 he was elected congressman by the Christian Democratic Party and became a member of the committee on economics, agricultural and law enforcement and of the committee on social legislation at Brazilian chamber of deputies.
At this poin he created a special committee for land reform and proposed a model of reform that aroused the indignation of the great Laird s of Brazil. After the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état he was one of the 100 first Brazilians to have their political rights impeached for ten years by the military dictatorship, at the first ten days of the new regime.
Arruda Sampaio first go into exile in Chile, where he lived for six years, working as an employee of FAO. In 1970 he moved to United States, where he worked in FAO and at the IDB in Washington, before he to ae master's degree in agricultural economics at Cornell University.
Back to Brazil 1976 he become teaching at the Getulio Vargas Foudation, where he founded the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Cedec) and engaged in the campaign for opening of military regime and the amnesty of politicians who had been expelled from political life.
At this time, along with other intellectuals, he imagined devised a party to the left of Brazilian Democratic Movement, then one of the two political party's permitted by the militaries. and for that, alongside Almino Affonso, Francisco Weffort and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, raised MDB important leaders like Marcos Freire and Jarbas Vasconcelos. In parallel, Arruda Sampaio, Affonso and Weffort launched the candidacy of Cardoso for the Brazilian Senate
The agreement between them was to build a new left party if Cardoso won more than one million votes (he received 1.6 million votes). The party had already and manifest and program and would be called People's Democratic Socialist Party (PSDP).
In the design of Arruda Sampaio, the new party would be an advantage Democratic and mass-based popular program and socialist, organized in clusters based. But the idea of creating a new party was aborted by the change of plans of Cardoso, who, after being elected senator on 1978 stated as a priority the strengthening of the MDB party, despite the commitment made to Arruda Sampaio, Affonso and Weffort to build a new party. Arruda Sampaio, perplexed by the reversal, broke with the MDB.
Disappointed with the attitude of Cardoso, Arruda and Weffort entered the Workes Party (PT) at de foundation, in 1980. Arruda was the author of the by law of the party and one of the creators of its core base.
In 1982 he applied to the congressman by São Paulo, when he lost, but later would come to occupy the spot of. Eduardo Suplicy, resigned to run for mayor of São Paulo. In 1986, Arruda Sampaio was elected deputy of the constituent, with 63 899 votes, was the second most voted deputy of the PT (after Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva) and 27th more voted in São Paulo.
As a member of the constituent he became widely known to propose and defend a model of constitutional reform which aimed to wipe out the plantations, also became the only PT deputy to chair a working committee. During the constituent, Arruda was a member of the drafting committee, the committee of systematization, the committee on state institutions and the subcommittee on cities and regions, who he presided.
He was also deputy leader of the PT in 1987, and replaced Lula da Silva in the party leadership in 1988. At this same year he lost to Luiza Erundia the PT nomination for São Paulo mayor election. Erundina win what would be the first major election for PT.
In 1990 he ran for governor of São Paulo, being defeated by the state secretary of public safety Luiz Antonio Fleury Filho, candidate for PMDB, which had the support of the then governor Orestes Quercia.
After leaving the Workers Party, for which he was a founding member and historic leader, Arruda Sampaio joined the PSOL. He did not agree with the political direction of the PT at the time, quitting the party in 2005.
In 2006 Arruda Sampaio was PSOL candidate for the governorship of São Paulo. For defend the struggle for socialism, the program differed from the popular-democratic direction of the PSOL majority, represented by Heloísa Helena, the then presidential candidate.
During the Second Congress of the PSOL, the state deputy Raul Marcelo launched the pre-candidacy of Arruda Sampaio to the presidency. His purpose is to build a program that serves to counter the effects of economic crisis on workers and the unity of the socialist left against capital.