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Bolsonaro Fires Moderate Cabinet Member General Santos Cruz

Bolsonaro Fires Moderate Cabinet Member General Santos Cruz

(Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday fired his government secretary, a moderate general who repeatedly clashed with the president’s most radical supporters, including one of his sons.

Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz wrote in a statement that he was leaving at the request of the president, thanking the officials who worked for him and wishing Bolsonaro and his family “health, happiness and success.” The move was confirmed in a note issued by the presidential spokesman, who named his replacement as General Luiz Eduardo Ramos Baptista Pereira, the current military commander in Brazil’s south-east.

Bolsonaro Fires Moderate Cabinet Member General Santos Cruz

With Brazil’s cabinet roughly divided between radical rightwing ideologues, economic liberals and a more pragmatic military wing, the army general was one of the voices of moderation within the administration. A former commander of a UN peacekeeping force in Haiti, Santos Cruz kept a relatively low profile in public. However, he clashed repeatedly with the president’s son, Carlos, and his more radical supporters, over their aggressive and provocative postings on social media.

A person familiar with the reasons behind his dismissal said that a dispute over budget allocations relating to the government’s communications’ strategy played a role in the decision to fire Santos Cruz.

Limited Victory

With his replacement also hailing from the military, the change in personnel represents a limited victory for the most radical forces in the government, said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of political science at Rio de Janeiro State University.

“They managed to get an important general fired,” Santoro said. “Ramos is taking over well aware that his predecessor lost his job over such disagreements.”

Yet the change is unlikely to have a major impact on relations with Congress and the future of reforms, said Juliano Griebeler, a political analyst at the Barral MJorge consultancy. Griebler noted that the most radical wing of the government has had “more defeats than victories” in recent months.

Santos Cruz is the third minister to leave the Bolsonaro administration that started only six months ago. The first was fired in February, a little over one month after the president took office. Gustavo Bebianno, the secretary-general of the presidency, had also rowed with Carlos Bolsonaro.

In a Facebook Live broadcast that took place shortly after Santos Cruz’s dismissal was confirmed, the president did not mention the former cabinet minister once. The note issued by the presidential palace said the decision “would not affect the mutual friendship and admiration between the two men.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Simone Iglesias in Brasília at spiglesias@bloomberg.net;Mario Sergio Lima in Brasilia Newsroom at mlima11@bloomberg.net

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

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