New president known as coalition builder
Michel Temer, Brazil’s president until 2018, inherits a troubled economy and fractured political system after the Senate’s ouster of his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, on Wednesday.
WHO IS TEMER?
He is a center-right politician who was Rousseff ’s vice president until he was elevated to interim president after she was suspended in May for allegedly illegal government budget maneuvers. She was ousted by more than two-thirds of the Senate vote required to remove her from office.
Temer’s formal ascension to the presidency ends 13 years of rule by the left-wing Workers Party that helped lift tens of millions of Brazilians out of poverty during an economic boom that came crashing down in recent years.
He is the son of immigrants from Lebanon and married to a former beauty queen more than 40 years his junior. He has a reputation as a skilled coalition builder and tactful political operator who shuns the spotlight but is never far from it.
DOES HIS GOVERNMENT REFLECT BRAZIL’S DIVERSITY AS ROUSSEFF’S DID?
He named a Cabinet of all white men in a country that is more than 50% non-white. Temer’s Cabinet has been criticized for its lack of diversity, and three ministers were forced to step down within a month of taking office because of corruption allegations.
WHAT IS HE LIKELY TO DO DURING HIS REMAINING TIME IN OFFICE?
Temer is a pro-business, freemarket advocate who likely will work to cut spending, boost investment and restore financial confidence in Brazil by moving away from the large-scale state spending projects that Rousseff promoted in a failed attempt to revive the economy.
DO THE PEOPLE OF BRAZIL LIKE HIM?
Recent polls show most Brazilians believe Temer, 75, a Wall Street-friendly former law professor, also should be impeached. An April poll by Brazil’s Folha
de S.Paulo newspaper found that 60% of respondents supported Rousseff ’s ouster, and 58% wanted to get rid of Temer, as well.