Renato Feder Declines Invitation to Head Brazilian Ministry of Education

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Renato Feder, the Secretary of Education of Paraná State, decided not to accept President Jair Bolsonaro’s invitation to head the Ministry of Education (MEC). On Sunday, July 5th, Feder published on his social media that the President had called him on Thursday, but he declined the invitation.

In the note, Feder said he was “very honored with the invitation, which crowns the good work done by ninety thousand education professionals from Paraná,” but will continue to conduct the work in the state secretariat. The Secretary also wished the President good luck and good management of the MEC.

Sources close to Feder relate that the President’s stance, after the invitation to head MEC was leaked, upset the Secretary of Governor Ratinho Júnior’s government. After Thursday’s call, Feder had already exchanged messages with Bolsonaro and agreed to remain silent until the appointment. But the fact that Bolsonaro failed to take a stand when Evangelicals and Olavists launched attacks on Feder angered the Secretary, who considered the President’s stance “disrespectful”. Bolsonaro had already warned a number of legislators that Feder’s name “was out”.

Sources close to the former Secretary say that Bolsonaro seemed to have left Feder “hanging out to dry” while the teacher “took a beating” from the President’s own allies.

Earlier, Feder had spoken out on Twitter about accusations he had been facing since his name was announced. The invitation prompted a negative reaction in several branches of the government, particularly in the evangelical wing, which directly demanded the President to reverse it.

On Sunday, Feder posted on Twitter that he would like to be assessed for what “he thinks and does today, as a public manager, instead of a book written fifteen years ago”. “I wrote a book when I was 26 years old. Today, more mature and experienced, I’ve changed my mind about the ideas contained in it… I believe that everyone can and should evolve in relation to what they thought in their youth. I would like to be assessed by what I think and do today, as a public manager, rather than by a book written fifteen years ago…,” he wrote on social media.

He was referring to the book “Carregando o Elefante – Como transformar o Brasil no país mais rico do mundo” (Carrying the Elephant – How to turn Brazil into the richest country in the world), which he wrote in 2007 together with Alexandre Ostrowiecki. In it, Feder advocated the use of “vouchers,” or financing the education of students in private schools. In the publication, he also challenged whether the state was in fact the ideal body to conduct school administration.

Pastor Silas Malafaia was among those who spoke to Bolsonaro and opposed Feder’s appointment to head MEC. At the time, although he had already invited the Secretary, the President told Malafaia that the decision had not yet been made. Since then, the uncertainty surrounding Feder’s name has increased, so the nominee decided to anticipate Bolsonaro and say that he would decline the invitation.

In addition to the evangelicals, the government’s right wing and part of the Military also opposed Feder, for various reasons, from his past connection with governor João Doria, whose campaign he partly financed in 2016, to his alleged closeness to the Lemann group, on account of partnerships signed in the Secretariat of Education of Paraná. The fact that he is a name linked to the political class, as a potential nod to grassroots parties in the government, also troubled the President’s allies.

Source: O Globo

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