President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the first five ministers of the future government. The names were announced at Brasília’s Banco do Brasil Cultural Center (CCBB), where the government transition office was installed.
According to Lula, some members had already been revealed, as they needed time to assemble their teams. “I need some people to start working to build the government structure. I need the government to start working,” he said.
The nominations are:
Chief of Staff: Rui Costa (governor of Bahia state until December);
Finance: Fernando Haddad (onetime education minister and ex-mayor of São Paulo);
Defense: José Múcio Monteiro (erstwhile head of the Federal Court of Accounts and former minister for Institutional Relations);
Justice and Public Safety: Flávio Dino (senator for Maranhão and ex-governor of the state);
Foreign Relations: Mauro Vieira (onetime foreign minister and Brazil’s ambassador to Croatia).
The names of the remaining ministers should be announced later this week, following Lula and vice-President–elect Geraldo Alckmin’s certification ceremony. Originally, cabinet officials were not going to be revealed until after the ceremony, but the president-elect decided to make some of the nominations public earlier after the Senate approved a constitutional amendment bill—known as transition bill—guaranteeing funds for welfare programs.
