Ivan Pinheiro

Who is Ivan Pinheiro?

Ivan Martins Pinheiro is a Brazilian politician, secretary-general of the Brazilian Communist Party since 2005 and a candidate in the 2010 presidential election. He also ran for mayor of Rio de Janeiro in 1996.

Pinheiro was born in Rio de Janeiro, then capital of Brazil, and started his political life as a student leader at the Pedro II College, the most important college in the country. He was president of the student board and was arrested for his political activism.

In 1964, when the military instored their dictatorship, Pinheiro was admitted to Law School at the State University of Guanabara. There, he joined the MR-8, then the most important urban guerrilla in Brazil, and connected to the Communist Party of Brazil. Again he was elected as chair of the student board.

After the urban guerrilla was defeated, in the early 1970s, Pinheiro changed allegiance to the Brazilian Community Party, which always condemned the armed struggle.

In 1976, hired by the Banco do Brasil, he brought his Communist advocacy into the labor union of bank employees. In 1978, he was elected chairman of the union of bank workers of Rio de Janeiro, and became a union boss at the same time that Lula was heading the metalworkers in São Paulo. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Party in 1982.