Fernando Collor de Mello
Fernando Collor de Mello was the first president Brazilians elected directly in twenty-nine years and the first they removed. He was forty when he won, a governor from the small north-eastern state of Alagoas with a television network in the family, and he ran as an outsider against the political class. His slogan was the hunter of maharajahs, meaning overpaid public officials. He beat Lula narrowly in a runoff in 1989. His first act in office was the most drastic economic measure in Brazilian history. Inflation was running at eighty per cent a month. His plan froze the bank accounts of the entire country, seizing savings above a low threshold for eighteen months, and it did stop the inflation for a quarter. Then it came back, and the recession it caused did not lift. Alongside it he opened the economy to imports, began privatising the state companies and cut the ministries drastically, which set the direction his successors kept. He was destroyed by his own brother. In May 1992 Pedro Collor told a magazine that the president's campaign treasurer was running an influence-selling operation and that the president was its beneficiary. A congressional inquiry traced payments into accounts that funded the renovation of his house. Students marched with their faces painted, and the Chamber voted to impeach him by four hundred and forty-one votes to thirty-eight. He resigned as the Senate trial opened, which did not save him: the Senate convicted him anyway and barred him from office for eight years. The Supreme Court later acquitted him of corruption for lack of admissible evidence. He returned as a senator for Alagoas in 2007, and in 2023 the same court convicted him over a later scheme and sentenced him to eight years and ten months.
- Lived: 1949 CE – ?
- Nationality: Brazilian
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
