The Brazilian president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, announced this Friday to the first five ministers -and the most key ones- of his future government, which will begin on January 1, after the inauguration of the progressive leader, who in October In the past, the current president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, prevailed in the second electoral round.
Treasury, Presidency, Defense, Foreign Affairs and Justice are the portfolios announced by Lula, which will be the most strategic to carry out the country’s progressive turn after four years of Bolsonaro’s right-wing populism.
The most anticipated announcement by the markets was that of the Finance Minister, who will be Fernando Haddad, 59, who, in addition to having been mayor of São Paulo and Minister of Education, was also the candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT) in the presidential elections of 2018, where Bolsonaro ended up prevailing, while Lula was imprisoned for corruption and disqualified from running, although the trial was ultimately annulled.
The PT leader recovers Mauro Vieira, 71, current ambassador in Croatia and who already held the position during the term of Dilma Rousseff. Vieira will have to recover foreign relations with the EU –especially with France-, with the US of Joe Biden or with the Latin American countries that are turning towards progressivism, or even with China; relationships, all of which were damaged during Bolsonaro’s term, which became embroiled in various controversies.
José Múcio, 76, who was president of the Court of Accounts, will head the Ministry of Defense and will have the mission of demilitarizing the public administration, flooded with soldiers by Bolsonaro, in addition to ensuring that the Armed Forces stop intervening in politics.
In Justice, Lula has placed Senator Flávio Dino, 54 years old and former governor of the state of Maranhão. While the right hand of the future president will be the current governor of the state of Bahia, Rui Costa, 59, who will take over the Ministry of the Civil House (Presidency), whose holder is equivalent, in practice, to the prime minister.
Lula, who assured that he will announce more appointments next week, presented the five ministers at a press conference in Brasilia. Before giving way to the questions, the president-elect anticipated the possible criticism that he could receive for lack of diversity, taking into account that there were no women and only one of them is not white. “We are going to have blacks, Indians…”, said Lula. “We are going to try to set up a government that is the face of Brazilian society in all its dimension”, he promised.
