International News

BRASMLIA, (APP/AFP) – Brazil’s acting president
Michel Temer vowed Friday to get Latin America’s largest economy
back on track after a cascade of crises put an end to 13 years
of leftist rule.
Temer presided over the first meeting of his new
business-friendly cabinet, setting out its priorities: creating
a leaner government, balancing finances to address a crippling
recession, and rooting out the corruption that a huge judicial
probe has uncovered at the highest levels of Brazilian politics
and business.
“I want to get the country back on the rails,” Temer told
weekly magazine Epoca in his first interview as president after
taking over from suspended predecessor Dilma Rousseff, who
faces an impeachment trial in the Senate.
Temer’s chief of staff, Eliseu Padilha, said the new
government faced a challenging to-do list.
“We’re living through the worst economic crisis in the
history of Brazil,” he told a press conference.
The solution, he said, is “out with corruption and in
with efficiency.”
Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles, the man tasked
with restoring confidence in Brazil’s economy, said his
priority would be cutting spending.
He pledged not to cut the popular social programs
launched under the sidelined Workers’ Party (PT) — initiatives
credited with helping lift tens of millions of people out of
poverty — as long as beneficiaries really need them.
But he warned: “Maintaining a social program doesn’t mean
maintaining the misuse of a social program.”
Temer asked for patience as his team works to turn around
an economy stuck in its worst recession in decades.
“I’m not going to be able to work miracles in two years,”
he said.
That timeframe belies the strange leadership limbo in
which Brazil finds itself pending an impeachment trial that
could last up to six months.
Political analysts say Rousseff will likely be removed
from office for good by a two-thirds vote in the Senate — and
Temer is clearly betting he will hold power until the next
presidential election in 2018.