SAO PAULO, (Reuters) – Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer will reinstate the Culture Ministry today, a government official said, after an outcry from some of the country’s top artists over his policy to fold it into the Education Ministry to save money.
The decision to axe the culture ministry was part of Temer’s drive to tackle Brazil’s record government deficit by reducing the number of ministries by 10 to 23, one of the first measures he announced when he took office on May 12.
Singer-songwriters Caetano Veloso and Erasmo Carlos, pioneers of Brazil’s tropicalia and rock music movements, held a concert in the Education building in Rio de Janeiro last Friday in one of the protests by artists against the move.
Temer had also invited actress Bruna Lombardi and singer Daniela Mercury to head up the scaled-back culture portfolio. Both refused.
Temer will reinstate the ministry using a presidential decree and the new minister Marcelo Calero, a diplomat, will take office on Monday, Education Minister Jose Mendonca Filho said on his Twitter account late on Saturday.
It was the latest in a series of reversals by the interim government in its hastily organized transition.
Temer was handed the reins of Latin America’s largest economy after the Senate suspended leftist President Dilma Rousseff and put her on trial for breaking budget rules.
He pledged a series of business friendly reforms to drag Brazil out of its worst recession in decades. On Friday, the government was forced to defend a popular housing subsidy, after a minister told a newspaper it was under review.
