Brazil's Bolsonaro Appoints Evangelical Pastor as New Education Minister
By Reuters, Wire Service Content July 10, 2020, at 4:54 p.m.
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro appointed Milton Ribeiro as the nation's new education minister on Friday, after the previous minister stepped down amid a series of scandals in June.
Ribeiro has degrees in education, constitutional law and theology, according to information posted on a government website. He is also a pastor at an evangelical church in Sao Paulo state and was previously a lieutenant in Brazil's armed forces, a common qualification for appointees of Bolsonaro, who has surrounded himself in Brasilia with current and former army officers.
Ribeiro replaces Abraham Weintraub, who stepped down on June 18. His aggressive style made trouble for the president, including racist remarks about China, Brazil's top trading partner, and a comment that Supreme Court judges should be locked up.
The court had included Weintraub in an investigation of an alleged libel and disinformation network run by Bolsonaro's supporters.
Bolsonaro's first pick for a replacement, economist Carlos Decotelli, stepped down before he was sworn in after various irregularities in his curriculum vitae came to light, including over a doctorate degree he claimed to have received and post-doctoral work that was never completed, according to Brazilian media reports.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-07-10/brazils-bolsonaro-appoints-evangelical-pastor-as-new-education-minister
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Pastor Milton!
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Who is Milton Ribeiro, new Minister of Education chosen by Bolsonaro
1 hour ago
After almost a month without an education minister and several controversies involving names targeted for the post, President Jair Bolsonaro announced a new name for the portfolio: the professor and pastor of the Presbyterian Church Milton Ribeiro. Theologian and lawyer, Ribeiro is a former vice-chancellor of Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie.
Appointed on Friday (10) as a new minister shortly after the announcement via social media, Ribeiro was already part of the government: he has been a member of the Public Ethics Committee linked to the Presidency since June. If formally appointed, he will be the fourth Minister of Education in a year and a half under Bolsonaro.
The first, Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez, left office in April after a management marked by crises and controversies , the last being an interview in which he said he intended to change the way the 1964 coup and the military dictatorship are portrayed in textbooks.
Velez was replaced by Abraham Weintraub, who became one of the government's most belligerent ministers and ended up going out of tensions with the Supreme Court, after being recorded referring to STF ministers as vagrants. "I used to put these vagabonds all in jail. Starting at the STF," he said at a ministerial meeting.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-53371442