Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva confirmed on Thursday (Mar. 19) that Dario Durigan will be the new finance minister, replacing Fernando Haddad, who should leave the post to run in the upcoming elections.
The announcement was made informally during an event in São Paulo, while the president was greeting officials.
“I’d like to greet our comrade Dario Durigan. He will be Haddad’s replacement at the Ministry of Finance. You can look him in the face, because he’s the one you’ll be asking for a lot of things,” the president declared. Durigan is currently the ministry’s executive secretary.
The announcement came as Lula was reading the list of event attendees. When he mentioned Durigan, he asked him to stand up and introduced him as the future head of the economic team.
During his speech, the president also took stock of the administration and highlighted the ministers’ performance throughout his term.
“Haddad will go down in history as the most successful finance minister in this country’s history for having passed a tax reform that had been stalled for 40 years,” Lula stated.
Departure confirmed
Earlier, Haddad confirmed he will step down from his post after more than three years in office. He has not officially announced which office he will run for. He has only said he will participate in the upcoming elections.
In his final hours in office, Haddad described the moment as symbolic. “Today is a special day, a day on which I am leaving the Ministry of Finance,” he said.
The move comes amid expectations that the former minister will announce his candidacy for governor of São Paulo state on Thursday evening (19), at an event alongside Lula in São Bernardo do Campo.
