Bolsonaro govt has military, conservative streak
BRASÍLIA: Brazil’s next government, under incoming far-right president Jair Bolsonaro who takes power in three weeks, will be neo-liberal economically, morally conservative and heavy reliant on a contingent
- nal composition that has emerged after weeks of announcements and
22 ministries, down from 29 in the outgoing administration.
Seven of the ministers will be military men. Eight have
are politicians. All are united by Brazilian President- elect Jair Bolsonaro leaves the transitional government headquarters in Brasilia on Dec. 11, 2018.
scrapped labor portfolio.
Guedes, a strong advocate of privatization and small government, has named a bunch of veteran economists — nicknamed the “Chicago Oldies” by the Brazilian press — to take charge of state oil company Petrobras, the central bank and the BNDES development bank.
“The formation of the economic team suggests that Guedes will enjoy fairly big autonomy to carry out the reform agenda without interference from other parts of the government,” Thomaz Favaro, an analyst at the firm Control Risks, told AFP.
Anti- corruption
Another priority is to fight corruption and rampant crime. Another superministry — for justice this time — will be under the command of Sergio Moro, a celebrated anti-graft judge who led the Car Wash investigation that led to Lula and other politicians being sent to prison.
But it remains to be seen how Moro will be able to operate under Bolsonaro’s extreme right direction, with divergences already possible over the next president’s push to ease gun laws and to label radical rural groups as “terrorists.”
Wladimir Gramacho, a political sciences professor at the University
of Brasilia, said Moro and Guedes, as well as Onyx Lorenzoni who will become Bolsonaro’s chief of
three pillars supporting a government: Congress, the economy and public opinion.”
Camouflage in cabinet
Brazil’s 63- year- old leader- to- be has never hidden his nostalgia for the 1964- 1985 military dictatorship he served, nor his intent to dose his cabinet with ex- military types.
In addition to the post of vice president, retired generals have been named as the ministers of defense, the secretariat of government, institutional security, mines and energy, science and technology, infrastructure, and
“We’ll see what the military men in the future government bring and their interest in taking on greater portions of power,” Gramacho told AFP.
God above all
Bolsonaro has also brought in people who share his ultraconservative values — he is against abortion and gender identity as defined by individuals — and his Christian faith, as well as his pro-US, anti-globalization, anti- left views that include
scepticism toward climate change.
His future foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo, has promised to clean out any trace of “cultural Marxism” from his ministry. His education minister, a Colombian philosopher named Ricardo Velez Rodriguez, has stated that
His environment minister is a lawyer, Ricardo Salles, who is sympathetic to the powerful rural sector, according to Greenpeace and other
The new minister for human rights, women and the family will be a female evangelical pastor, Damares Alves, who has surprised some by saying she believed it was possible to have “a government of peace between the conservative movement, the LGBT movement and other movements.”
Beef, bullets, bible
Bolsonaro has eschewed the custom of doling out ministries to parties supporting him. Instead he has put some portfolios — agriculture for instance — in the hands of what is being called the “BBB” lobbies, standing for “Beef, Bullets and the Bible.”
They cut across several parties and put forward the interests of Brazil’s powerful agribusiness groups, gun advocates, and an
- cal movement.