Bolsonaro Creates New Ministry, Tailor-Made for Centrão and SBT Owner

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Contrary to what he had vowed throughout his campaign, when he said his government would have “at most” 15 Ministries, Jair Bolsonaro announced the recreation of the Ministry of Communications.

His cabinet currently has a total of 23 portfolios. The new cabinet will be headed by Fábio Faria, a federal congressman and the son-in-law of Silvio Santos, one of the country’s main TV networks, known for its pro-Bolsonaro stance.

The choice, which may indicate a conflict of interest, was a clear nod from Bolsonaro to the congressional bloc known as Centrão, which the President has been approaching to garner political support amid a string of impeachment petitions lodged against him. The group used to be the target of attacks by the President, who referred to them as representatives of the “old politics,” supporters of the “mutual backscratch” patronage system.

Bolsonaro denied that the appointment was intended to gain political support: “The people are attacking, because they belong to the Centrão, and I don’t even remember what their party is,” he said on Thursday. But this appointment further strengthens the government’s ties with the bloc. According to a report by Afonso Benites, the President has already granted the Centrão at least four second- and third-ranking patronage positions that together manage about R$73 (US$14.6) billion, equivalent to two percent of the entire federal budget.

In addition to helping shield the government from an impeachment process, Faria’s appointment is also a gesture that should please Silvio Santos, owner of SBT. The entrepreneur never concealed his affection for the President, and even took off the air a journalistic program that had criticized the Federal Government’s lack of effective policies to fight the coronavirus. It will be up to his son-in-law to decide on the renewal of broadcasting concessions granted by the federal government for organizations to operate radio and television stations, which will expire on October 5th, 2022.

Bolsonaro has implied more than once that he may not renew the operating license for TV Globo, a competitor of SBT and a regular target of  hisattacks. In April he told a reporter that “for 2022 it is not a threat, as I do with everyone else, the books will have to be correct in order to have their concessions renewed. If things are not right, I will not renew for them, or for anyone else”.

It will also be the responsibility of Silvio Santos’ son-in-law to choose how the Federal Government’s advertising budget will be spent. TV Globo, which Bolsonaro calls “the garbage press,” has already lost its share of advertising funds, according to a report in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.

The new Ministry, which had been extinct since the impeachment of then-president Dilma Rousseff in 2016, also risks increasing the government’s costs at a time when emergency spending to deal with the pandemic’s economic impact could reach R$253 billion. In a note, however, the Planalto denies that recreating the Ministry will entail additional costs. “Without any increase in spending, using only existing structure positions, the President of the Republic has recreated the Ministry of Communications”.

According to Bolsonaro, a Provisional Measure will be edited that will break up the existing Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications, from where part of this structure will come.

“The Special Secretariat of Social Communication, currently in the Presidency of the Republic’s Government Secretariat, has been dissolved and its powers incorporated into the new Ministry”. As a result, Fabio Wajngarten, the controversial head of Bolsonaro’s Communication Department, remains as Executive Secretary of Communications.

Source: El País

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