Brazil's Bolsonaro Seeks Fourth Press Secretary in Six Months

(Bloomberg) -- Communicating President Jair Bolsonaro’s governing philosophy is no easy task. After six months in office, he’s now on the look-out for his fourth press secretary.

Internal disputes over how to handle the media, fueled by the president’s own deep suspicions of the fourth estate as well as the overweening influence of his fervidly ideological sons, has complicated the job of government press liaison.

The first person in the job, a hangover from the previous administration of President Michel Temer, lasted less than two months. Bolsonaro’s first appointment to the position, Major Alexandre Lara, didn’t last much longer. On Tuesday, his replacement, Fernando Diniz, quit after just one month. The presidential palace did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Like President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro regularly targets the media, but the revolving door of press secretaries in Brazil has other roots. Behind the scenes, there are profound disagreements over how to allocate public funds for advertising contracts, with Carlos Bolsonaro, the president’s second son, lobbying for cash for his ideological soulmates. The men who resigned cited “incompatibilities” as the reason for their departures.

In Brazil, the press secretary reports to the communications secretary, which forms part of the government secretariat. Last week, the president fired General Carlos Alberto Santos Cruz, the government secretary responsible for managing the government’s marketing budget. One of the reasons for his dismissal was disagreement over the direction of those funds.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simone Iglesias in Brasília at spiglesias@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Bruce Douglas

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