Departures of note

Manoel Dias was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who helped found the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) in 1980 alongside Leonel Brizola and other leaders. Born in Criciúma, Santa Catarina, he began his public life in the 1960s as a student leader and city councilor in Içara, later serving as a state deputy in the Legislative Assembly of Santa Catarina from 1967 to 1971. During the military dictatorship he had his mandate revoked twice and was imprisoned as a political prisoner, with his political rights suspended for ten years.

After amnesty in 1979, Dias helped establish the PDT and rose to become its secretary-general, president of the party's Santa Catarina branch, and president of the Fundação Leonel Brizola-Alberto Pasqualini. He served as Minister of Labour and Employment from 2013 to 2015 during the Dilma Rousseff administration, and had earlier worked in the Brizola government in Rio de Janeiro as director of the state bank Banerj. He died in Florianópolis on 22 August 2026 at the age of 88.