“We are convinced that we are going to do such a good job governing that the government that is provisional today will become definitive before 180 days are up”, Padilha told a news conference following the government’s first cabinet meeting.
Advertisement
Brazil’s acting president Michel Temer called Thursday for a “government of national salvation” after a Senate impeachment vote that suspended President Dilma Rousseff from office.
Temer, a center-right veteran backed by the business world, has vowed to get the government’s books in order and restore confidence in the Latin American giant’s economy, now mired in its worst recession in decades.
The economy has been predicted to contract almost 4% this year after an equally dismal 2015, and inflation and unemployment are hovering around 10%, underscoring a sharp decline after the South American giant enjoyed stellar growth for more than a decade.
Meirelles reiterated the government will seek to overhaul the pension system with the adoption of a minimum retirement age. But he was short on details.
Temer hasn’t named a new central bank chief yet but news reports say he’s strongly considering Ilan Goldfajn, the top economist at Itau Unibanco, one of Brazil’s biggest banks.
“What is at stake is respect for the independent will of the Brazilian people and the Constitution, and for the achievements of the past 13 years” under the leadership of the Workers’ Party, said Rousseff, flanked by her cabinet and political allies on Friday.
She said she would continue to speak out against impeachment proceedings she has denounced as a “farce” and “sabotage”. “There was a systematic blockage to create the proper climate for the coup”.
Brazilian acting President Michel Temer (L) and his new Minister of justice Alexandre de Moraes gesture during the inauguration ceremony of the new ministers at Planalto Palace, in Brasilia, on May 12, 2016.
Ms Rousseff’s trial in the senate will decide if she can complete her second term or whether Mr Temer – a 75-year-old lawyer – will continue in power until December 2018.
Theres a problem of representation, particularly with respect to women, who make up more than 50 percent of Brazils population, she added.
The absence of a single person of color has also upset many in civil society.
Rousseff has also screamed “sexism” over the votes along with Brazilian feminists.
The website provided two links where Temer’s candid thoughts on Brazilian politics serve as the basis for a report by the U.S. embassy in Brazil, reported Telesur (La Nueva Televisora del Sur), a multi-state funded, pan-Latin American terrestrial and satellite television network.
It’s not just Rousseff who’s critiquing the cabinet change.
The seven Cabinet ministers are being investigated over a corruption scandal of the state-owned oil company Petrobras.
Many top figures in Rousseff’s left-leaning Workers’ Party were also swept up in the ongoing probe.
Mr Temer has been implicated by witnesses in the scandal, but he has not been charged.
Corruption allegations have been dogging Rousseff’s administration since 2011.
She said that neither the pain she was subjected to by the regime’s torturers, nor the suffering she would later survive as a cancer patient, compare to the feeling at being what she regards as unjustly removed from office.
“So far, the Temer government only has men”.
Advertisement
“Temer is incredibly unpopular”.
