Rui Costa Pimenta

Rui Costa Pimenta is a Brazilian politician and a perennial presidential candidate aligned with the Trotskyist Workers' Cause Party.
He was their candidate in the 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 presidential elections and placed last in all of the elections he ran.

Early life and activism

Pimenta studied at Faculdade Cásper Líbero and started participating in student activism during this period, having been present at the National Union of Students' Refoundation Congress in 1980. He was also director of the Academic Center of Literary and Lingustic Studies of the Faculty of Letters at the University of São Paulo
Also in 1980, he was part of the Fourth International Organization's Foundation Congress. This congress saw the birth of the Workers' Cause coalition in the Workers' Party. In 1985, during his participation in the labor movement in protest against then President Sarney, he was elected as the director of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores, Brazil's largest trade union center, in the Greater São Paulo region.
In 1992, the members of the Workers' Cause coalition officially declared their intentions to split from the Workers' Party. In 1996, the Workers' Cause Party was registered.
In March of 2024, Pimenta met with Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas.