ABSTRACT
The PT in the federal government was willing to deliver on its main campaign pledges and maintain programmatic linkages with its most important social allies. These allies and their grassroots did manage to obtain gains under the Lula administration. Nevertheless, I argue in this chapter that the capacity of the party to deliver and maintain these linkages largely depended on the balance of forces among the most relevant strategic actors for governability on any given issue and their relative power. The PT in national executive public office established bargains in order to balance the interests of its allies in civil society vis-á-vis dominant strategic actors. In doing so, however, the party had to perform in a way which would not damage the relationships with the dominant strategic actors and put at risk its elite-centred governability strategy.
