Acting Brazil president to shake up cabinet

Going through portfolios with a fine-tooth comb, Brazil’s acting president is reportedly to overhaul the cabinet of the country’s suspended head of state, Dilma Rousseff.

On Thursday, Michel Temer took over from Rousseff, who was suspended for a six-month-long period earlier in the day by members of the Brazilian Senate, who voted 55 to 22 to put her on impeachment trial. The impeachment bid was launched over allegations that the president fiddled with government accounts in 2014 so she could increase public spending as a means of wooing votes for re-election.

An adviser to Temer, who used to serve as vice president under Brazil’s first female president, told AFP that he has already produced a list of at least 21 replacement ministers.

He has named the former central bank chief, Henrique Meirelles, as finance minister. The country is in the throes of its worst recession since the 1930s.

The former Sao Paulo governor, Jose Serra, a two-time presidential candidate for the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party, has been tapped as foreign minister.

Romero Juca, who succeeded Temer as the head of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party when he became vice president, was named planning and development minister.

The source said the list "is provisional, and there will be more names."

Rousseff’s suspension has put more than 13 years of rule by the left-wing Workers Party on hold. The chief executive’s career was marred by the economic crisis as well as Brazil’s biggest-ever corruption scandal involving state-run oil company Petrobras.

The graft scheme reportedly saw construction companies conspiring with Petrobras executives to overcharge the oil giant as much as USD two billion, some of which was paid out as bribes to politicians and parties.

Despite formerly chairing the oil colossus, Rousseff has not yet been formally tied to the scandal. She has, likewise, repeatedly disqualified her opponents, calling the impeachment bid an attempt at a “coup.”

Rousseff has asserted that she has fallen victim to a plot by the extreme right, adding, “They want to come to power by an easy route and not through popular election for which we have fought.”

The political crisis is feared to translate into intractable chaos on the streets as the Workers Party and labor unions have called for a national strike.

Temer said his priority is overcoming the crisis and taming the runaway recession.

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