The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, changed this Monday the president of the state-owned Petrobras, Joaquim Silva e Luna, amid strong pressure due to recurrent increases in fuel prices. The information, leaked by the Brazilian press, was confirmed at night by the Ministry of Mines and Energy, which proposed the economist Adriano Pires, a specialist in the area of gas and oil, as the candidate to replace him.
For several weeks, Bolsonaro had expressed his dissatisfaction with the increases in fuel prices in the country, but it was not until this Monday that he announced his decision to replace Silva e Luna, a 71-year-old career soldier who had been Just over a year in office at the head of the state-controlled oil company, which is listed on the Sao Paulo, New York and Madrid stock exchanges. Shortly after this decision was known, the Minister of Communications, Fabio Faria, reported the president’s admission to a hospital in Brasilia, although he did not clarify the reason.
For its part, the Ministry of Mines and Energy reported in a statement that the Government, as the majority shareholder of the oil company, sent Petrobras a list with the names of nine members who are applying to join the company’s Board of Directors, including the new presidential candidate. “The list presents Mr. Rodolfo Landim as a candidate to exercise the Presidency of the Board of Directors and Mr. Adriano Pires for the exercise of the Presidency of the company,” it reads.
The increase in fuel prices, related in part to the effects that the war is having in Ukraine, and the effects that it is having on inflation, made Bolsonaro uncomfortable, who went so far as to say that it was a “crime against the population.” “I have no powers over Petrobras. But, for me, it is a company that could be privatized today”, because “it would get rid of that problem”, he said in mid-February in an interview with television. Get Black about that remote possibility.
In that interview he also directed his criticism against Silva e Luna, whom he himself appointed to that position in February 2021. The military man then replaced the economist Roberto Castello Branco, who was dismissed precisely because of Bolsonaro’s complaints after the prices of fuels increased by 35% in a matter of three months, also due to international market pressures.
The recent increases in fuels have put pressure on inflation in an election year, which since the end of last year has been above 10% per year and, according to official sources, is seen as an obstacle in Bolsonaro’s path towards a possible reelection.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS América newsletter and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region
#Bolsonaro #dismisses #president #Petrobras #increase #fuel #prices