Fernando Collor de Mello

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello

(born Aug. 12, 1949, Rio de Janeiro, Braz.) President of Brazil (1990 – 92). Born to wealth, he became governor of the small state of Alagoas in 1987. Promising to promote economic growth and combat corruption and inefficiency, he defeated the leftist Luiz Silva in 1989 to become Brazil's first popularly elected president in nearly 30 years. The country's economic decline, fueled by a staggering foreign debt and hyperinflation, failed to improve, and he resigned in 1992 as his trial for corruption was about to begin.

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Biography: Fernando Collor de Mello

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Brazilian businessman and politician Fernando Collor de Mello (born 1949) became that nation's youngest president in 1990. He brought a dynamic, effervescent style to the leadership of a nation saddled with enormous debt and pressing social problems.

Fernando Collor de Mello was elected president of Brazil on December 15, 1989, and inaugurated on March 15, 1990. A former journalist and media entrepreneur, Collor was the first popularly-elected president of Brazil since 1960, and, at age 40, that republic's youngest chief executive ever.

Born in Rio de Janeiro on August 12, 1949, Collor was raised largely in the poverty-ridden interior state of Alagoas, far from the centers of Brazilian power. His father, a wealthy businessman, served as governor of Alagoas, and other members of the Collor family served in government and business in positions of influence. He studied economics and journalism at the state's Federal University in Brasilia and began his career within the Collor family empire. Phenomenally successful as a media businessman, Collor gathered both wealth and renown, and gained some international notoriety as somewhat of a playboy. He first married Lilibeth Monteiro de Carvalho, a teenage aristocratic heiress in 1975, with whom he had two sons, but they divorced in 1981. He entered politics in 1979 when he became mayor of Maceió, capital city of Alagoas. He served ably in that capacity until 1982, and then decided to take advantage of the policy of abertura, or gradual political democratization, permitted by General João Batista Figueiredo, last of the five generals who ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985.

In 1982 he was elected to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, serving the nation in Brasilia for four years as its youngest congressman, representing Alagoas. While in Congress his interest in, and official concern with, economic matters became marked, and he achieved sufficient publicity as a no-nonsense financial reformer. His special cause was the long-neglected northeast, including Alagoas, and he was easily elected governor of his home state in 1986. Meanwhile, in 1984, he had been remarried to Rosane Malta, a college freshman from Alagoa.

As governor, Fernando Collor won a reputation for his statewide economic reforms, focusing on administrative efficiency, campaigns against corruption, and championship of major new social welfare measures. Regardless of his own personal wealth and good looks, the energetic governor gained a strong and devoted following among his state's less-advantaged. A national reputation was assured for his prosecution of highly paid state bureaucrats, and he became known as "the hunter of the Maharajahs."

The young governor and his wife were the center of a Brazilian state "Camelot," his outgoing, charming personality enhanced by an almost fanatical devotion to physical fitness and sports - he was national karate champion, among other distinctions. Able to communicate easily in English, French, Spanish, and Italian as well as his native Portuguese, Collor was often in the company of distinguished foreign visitors. He was, in short, something of a media event himself.

In 1989 Collor began his campaign for the presidency as candidate of the small National Reconstruction party, which controlled but five percent of the seats in Congress. Pledging to restructure the national economy, to protect the environment and ecology, and to initiate a responsible fiscal policy (which includes privatization of inefficient publicly-owned industries), Collor unleashed a media blitz unparalleled in Brazilian history. A bitter reaction by his two opponents revived long-standing class and religious antagonisms.

Although polls showed some erosion in support as the November 15 election approached, Collor's vision of "O Brasil Novo" ("The New Brazil") inspired enough voters of all social classes to lead the field of six candidates in the election, albeit with less than the constitutionally-mandated majority of votes cast.

Thus, a run-off election was scheduled for December 15, pitting Collor, an admirer of free-market economics and (more than any other Brazilian leader) the United States, against Leftist Luis "Lula" da Silva, candidate of the Workers' party. The final campaign was fierce and vitriolic, but despite Collor's elite status, his vision of a strong and modern Brazil, tied to the world's advanced democracies and combating both horrific inflation (up to 80 percent monthly) and government corruption, was sufficient to give him a slender electoral majority of 53 percent.

To help boost his image at home and give himself credibility abroad, the president-elect launched himself into a whirlwind of visits to foreign leaders. Following trips to neighboring Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, his next official venue was - pointedly - the United States, where he conferred with President George Bush and other government and international lending organization officials. He then continued on, maintaining an exhausting pace, to Tokyo, Moscow, Bonn, Rome, Paris, London, Lisbon, and Madrid. All made for colorful and heartening headlines in Brazil while generating goodwill and initial trade and debt talks abroad. Somehow, amidst this whirlwind, he also restructured Brazil's executive branch, reducing the 23 Cabinet departments to 12 "super ministries." The key Ministry of the Economy he surprisingly gave to 36-year-old economist Zelia Cardoso de Mello.

By the date of his March 15 inauguration it was clear that Collor was poised to act immediately on two crucial fronts, both of them sensitive in the extreme. Announcing that "Brazil's efforts with the Third World have not given us anything concrete," Collor signaled a major shift in Brazilian foreign policy designed to bond and integrate the nation with the United States (and other nations of the hemisphere) and the other important Western industrialized states. Domestically, in an attempt to curtail inflation, he announced a return to the cruzeiro unit of currency and a draconian package of economic austerity measures. Within this package was abandonment of wage and price indexing, temporary freezes of both, a crackdown on tax-dodgers, severe paring of the ranks of the federal bureaucracy, a freeze of 18 months on bank accounts, and a start on renegotiating Brazil's $110 billion foreign debt.

Collor confronted truly daunting problems, but he did so with a stronger rating in the polls than he enjoyed on election day, and many Brazilians were betting that his youth, optimism, "can do" attitude, and seemingly boundless energy would triumph. In 1991 Collor focused government attention on the need for creating home reservations for Brazil's native peoples. He also mounted a campaign urging the Group of Seven, the creditor nations, to help Brazil protect the Amazon Rainforests.

His reform efforts failing to produce progress in the eyes of the Brazilian public, Collor was impeached by the Chamber of Deputies on corruption charges in the fall of 1992. Before the trial began in December, and maintaining his innocence, he stepped aside to allow Vice-President Itamar Franco to become acting president. At the opening of his impeachment trial before the Brazilian Senate, Collor announced his resignation. He was convicted of corruption charges by a vote of 76 to 3. He was then barred from holding public office for eight years, and also faced possible criminal prosecution. In 1994, Collor was exonerated by the highest court in the land of all charges brought against him.

Fernando Collor de Mello

32nd President of Brazil
In office March 15, 1990 – December 29, 1992^[1]
Vice President	Itamar Franco
Preceded by	José Sarney
Succeeded by	Itamar Franco
55th Governor of Alagoas
In office March 15, 1987 – May 14, 1989
Preceded by	José de Medeiros Tavares
Succeeded by	Moacir Lopes de Andrade

Born	August 12, 1949 (1949-08-12) (age 60) Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro
Nationality	Brazilian
Political party	National Renewal Alliance Party (1979-82), Democratic Social Party (1982-86), Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (1986-89), National Reconstruction Party (1989-93), Brazilian Labour Renewal Party (2000-2007), Brazilian Labour Party (current)
Spouse(s)	Caroline Medeiros

Early career

He became the president of Brazilian football club Centro Sportivo Alagoano (CSA) in 1976. He entered politics, being successively elected mayor of Alagoas' capital Maceió in 1979 (National Renewal Alliance Party), a federal deputy (Democratic Social Party) in 1982, and eventually governor of the small Northeastern state of Alagoas (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) in 1986.

During his term as governor he attracted a lot of publicity by allegedly fighting the payment of super-salaries to public servants, whom he labeled marajás (maharajas^[2]) (likening them to the former princes of India who received a stipend from the government as compensation for relinquishing their lands). The efficacy of his policies in reducing public expense is disputed, but it certainly made him popular over the country.^[3] This helped boost his political career, with the help of television appearances in nationwide broadcasts (quite unusual for a governor from such a small state).

Presidency

In 1989 Collor defeated Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a controversial two-round presidential race and 35 million votes. He won in the state of São Paulo against many prominent political figures.^[4] The first democratically elected President of Brazil in 29 years, Collor spent the early years of his government allegedly battling inflation, which at times reached rates of 25% per month.

The very day he took office, Collor launched the Plano Collor (Collor Plan), implemented by his finance minister Zélia Cardoso de Mello (not related to Collor). The Plan attempted to reduce the money supply by forcibly converting large portions of consumer bank accounts into non-cashable government bonds, while at the same time increasing the printing of money bills, a contradictory measure to combat hyper-inflation.^{[citation needed]}

Collor's initiatives: free trade, privatization and state reforms

Under Zélia's tenure, Brazil had a period of major changes, featuring what ISTOÉ magazine called an "unprecedented" "revolution"^[5] in many levels of public administration: "privatization, opening its market to free trade, encouraging industrial modernization, temporary control of the hyper-inflation and public debt reduction."^[6]

In the month before Collor took power, hyperinflation was 84 percent per month and growing. All accounts over 50,000 Cruzeiros (about US$1,300 at that time), were frozen for 18 months. He also proposed freezes in wages and prices, as well as major cuts in government spending. The measures were received unenthusiastically by the people, though many felt that radical measures were necessary to kill the hyperinflation. Within a few months, however, inflation resumed, eventually reaching rates of 25 percent per month.

During the course of his government, Collor was accused of condoning an influence peddling scheme. The accusations weighed on the government and they lead Collor and his team to an institutional crisis leading to a loss of credibility that reached the finance minister, Zélia.^[5]

This political crisis had negative consequences on his ability to carry out his policies and reforms.^[7] The Plano Collor I, under Zélia would be renewed with the implementation of the Plano Collor II; the government's loss of prestige would make that follow-up plan short-lived and largely ineffective.^[6] The failure of Zélia and Plano Collor I led to their substitution by Marcílio Marques Moreira and his Plano Collor II. Moreira's plan tried to correct some aspects of the first plan, but it was too late. Collor's administration was paralyzed by the fast deterioration of his image, through a succession of corruption accusations.^[8]

During the Plano Collor, yearly inflation was at first reduced from 30,000 percent in 1990 (Collor's first year in government) to 400 percent in 1991, then climbing to 1,020 percent in 1992 (when he left office).^[9] Inflation continued to rise to 2,294 percent in 1994 (two years after he left office).^[10]

Although Zélia acknowledged later that the Plano Collor didn't end inflation, she also stated: "It is also possible to see with clarity that, under very difficult conditions, we promoted the balancing of the national debt - and that, together with the commercial opening, it created the basis for the implementation of the Plano Real."^[5]

Part of Collor's neoliberal program was followed by his successors:^[11] Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula da Silva.^[12] Collor's administration privatized 15 different companies (including Acesita, and began the process of privatization for others, such as Embraer, Telebrás and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce.^[6] Some members of Collor's government were also part of the later Cardoso administration in different or similar functions: Pedro Malan, Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL); Antônio Kandir (PSDB-SP); Pratini de Moraes and Celso Lafer; Reinhold Stephanes Armínio Fraga; Pedro Parente.

Bresser Pereira, a minister in the previous Sarney and the following Fernando Henrique Cardoso administrations, stated that "Collor changed the political agenda in the country, because implemented brave and very necessary reforms, and he pursued fiscal adjustments. Although other attempts had been made since 1987, it was during Collor's administration that old statist ideas were confronted and combatted (...) by a brave agenda of economic reforms geared towards free trade and privatization."^[13] According to Philippe Faucher, professor of political science at McGill University,^[14] the combination of the political crisis and the hyperinflation continued to decrease Collor's credibility and in that political vacuum an impeachment process took place, precipitated by Pedro Collor's (Fernando Collor's brother) accusations and other social and political sectors which thought would be harmed by his policies.^[6]

Collor de Mello, recent image

Self-described Accomplishments^[15]

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (December 2007)

Collor's official website lists the following as some of his accomplishments while in power:

Ended the moratorium on Brazil's $ 115 billion dollars foreign debt and began repayment negotiations.
Abolished restrictions on nearly 800 specific imports
Established a tariff reduction schedule
Abolished price and wage indexes
Signed the Asunción Treaty with Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina to create Mercosul- a common market for South America.
Began privatization of more than 70 government-run companies.
Decreased the government payroll
Decreased the fiscal deficit
Created a monthly budgetary surplus

Awards

In 1991, UNICEF chose three health programs: Community Agents, Lay Midwives and Eradication of measles as the best in the world. These programs were promoted during Collor's administration. Until 1989, the Brazilian record vaccination, was considered the worst in South America. During Collor's administration, Brazil won an UNO prize, as the best in South America, for its vaccination program. Collor's project Minha Gente (My People) won the UNO award Project Model for the Humanity in 1993.^[15]

Corruption charges and impeachment

In May 1991, Fernando Collor was accused by his brother, Pedro Collor, of rap, by condoning an influence peddling scheme run by his campaign treasurer, Paulo César Farias. The Federal Police and Congress began an investigation soon after. Some months later, with the investigation progressing and under fire, Collor went on national television to ask for the people's support by going out on the street and protesting against "coup" forces. On August 11, 1992, students organized by the National Student Union (União Nacional dos Estudantes - UNE), thousands of students protested on the streets against Collor. Their faces, often painted in a mixture of the colors of the flag and protest-black, lead to them being called "Caras-pintadas" ("Painted Faces").^[16]

On August 26, 1992, the final congressional inquiry report was released, where it was proven that Fernando Collor had personal expenses paid for by money raised by Paulo César Farias through his influence peddling scheme. Impeachment proceedings were initiated in the lower house of congress on September 29, 1992. Collor was impeached, and subsequently removed from office by a vote of 441 for and 38 votes against.^[17] Later, on December 29, 1992, Fernando Collor resigned his term in office just before the Brazilian Senate was to vote for his impeachment. The Senate did so anyway and suspended his political rights for eight years. In 1994, the Supreme Federal Tribunal tried the criminal charges stemming from the incident, and ruled he was not guilty of charges of corruption, but did not reinstate his political rights.^[18] The Supreme Federal Tribunal threw out the charges of corruption on a technicality,^[18] citing a lack of evidence linking Collor to Farias' influence peddling scheme. The only piece of evidence, Paulo César Farias' personal computer, was found to have been obtained illegally and thus void as evidence.^[19]

Collor's version of the impeachment

In discussing the events surrounding the corruption charges, Collor's official website states: "After two and half years of the most intense investigation in Brazilian history, the Supreme Court of Brazil declared him innocent of all charges. Today he is the only politician in Brazil to have an officially clear record validated by an investigation by all interests and sectors of the opposition government. Furthermore, President Fernando Collor signed the initial document authorizing the investigation."^[20]

Post-presidency

In December 1994, the Brazilian Supreme Court threw out the corruption charges citing a lack of evidence linking Collor to Farias' influence peddling scheme. The only piece of evidence, Paulo César Farias' personal computer, was found to have been obtained illegally and thus void as evidence.^[21]

In 2000, Collor tried to run for mayor of São Paulo. His candidacy was declared invalid by the courts, as his political rights were still suspended by the filing deadline.^[22]

In 2002, with political rights restored, he ran for Governor of Alagoas, but lost to incumbent Governor Ronaldo Lessa, who was seeking reelection.^[23]

In 2006, Collor was elected to the Brazilian Senate representing his state of Alagoas, with 44.03% of the vote, running again against Lessa.^[24]

Gallery

President Collor de Mello, 1991	Collor campaigning for Senate, 2006	Collor campaigning for Senate, 2006	Collor as Senator
With fellow Former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (left) and Jose Sarney (right)

References

^ From October 2, 1992 until Collor removal, Vice President Itamar Franco serves as the Acting President
^ Solingen, Etel (1998). Regional Orders at Century's Dawn. p. 147.
^ O marketing político e a importância da imagem-marca em campanhas eleitorais majoritárias
^ Fernando Collor
^ ^a ^b ^c [1] "Revista Isto é"
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d [2]. "Scielo"
^ Microsoft Word - Artigo.Rangel.doc
^ [3]
^ The Hyperinflation in Brazil, 1980-1994
^ http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+br0009
^ BBCBrasil.com | Reporter BBC | Lula segue política econômica de FHC, diz diretor do FMI
^ A CONTINUIDADE DA POLÍTICA MACROECONÔMICA ENTRE O GOVERNO CARDOSO E O GOVERNO LULA: UMA ABORDAGEM SÓCIO-POLÍTICA
^ Silvando da Silva do Nascimento, Rangel. A POLÍTICA ECONÔMICA EXTERNA DO GOVERNO COLLOR: LIBERALIZAÇÃO COMERCIAL E FINANCEIRA. Retrieved August 30, 2007.
^ [4]
^ ^a ^b Did you know
^ Rezende, Tatiana Matos UNE 70 Anos: "Fora Collor: o grito da juventude cara-pintada" União Nacional dos Estudantes. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
^ Lattman-Weltman, Fernando. September 29, 1992: Collor's Impeachment(Portuguese) Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
^ ^a ^b Fernando Collor é eleito senador por Alagoas
^ Como foi a ação contra Collor
^ Did You Know?
^ A volta por cima de Collor
^ Percival Albano Nogueira Junior, José. Sentença de indeferimento do registro da candidatura de Fernando Collor à Prefeitura de São Paulo Jus Navigandi. August 4, 2000. Retrieved on August 18, 2007.
^ Simas Filho, Mário.Elle Voltou. IstoÉ Online. September 13, 2006. Retrieved on August 18, 2007.
^ Após 14 anos de sua renúncia, Collor volta a Brasília como senador Folha Online. October 10, 2006. Retrieved on August 17, 2007

External links

Official web site

Political offices
Preceded by José de Medeiros Tavares	Governor of Alagoas 1987 – 1989	Succeeded by Moacir Lopes de Andrade
Preceded by José Sarney	President of Brazil March 15, 1990 – October 2, 1992	Succeeded by Itamar Franco

v • d • e Presidents of Brazil

Old republic	Deodoro da Fonseca · Floriano Peixoto · Prudente de Morais · Campos Sales · Rodrigues Alves · Afonso Pena · Nilo Peçanha · Hermes da Fonseca · Venceslau Brás · Delfim Moreira · Epitácio Pessoa · Artur Bernardes · Washington Luís · Júlio Prestes · Mena Barreto · Isaías de Noronha

Vargas era	Augusto Fragoso · Getúlio Vargas · José Linhares

Republic of 1946	Eurico Gaspar Dutra · Getúlio Vargas · João Café Filho · Carlos Coimbra da Luz · Nereu de Oliveira · Juscelino Kubitschek · Jânio Quadros · Ranieri Mazzilli · João Goulart

Military dictatorship	Humberto Castello Branco · Artur da Costa e Silva · Aurélio de Lira Tavares · Augusto Rademaker · Márcio Melo · Emílio Garrastazu Médici · Ernesto Geisel · João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo

New republic	Tancredo Neves · José Sarney · Fernando Collor · Itamar Franco · Fernando Henrique Cardoso · Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

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