The article analyzes the development of the Brazilian Democratic Movement oppositional action during the 1970s, emphasizing the 1974 federal legislative elections as a turning point. In order to strengthen the party socially and contest the civil-military dictatorship, the MDB’s leaders and congressmen sought to articulate a political platform based on the defense of the rule of law and critic to the economic development model. In their election campaigns and in their daily work in the National Congress, the MDB’s leadership challenged the civil-military authorities’ idea of ‘Security and Development’ and produced an alternative discourse on the Brazilian social order. These actions offered a different definition of development, which was deeply interdependent of the strengthening of classical representative institution and civil liberties.
Brazilian Democratic Movement; 1974’ elections; political campaign