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Brasília (dpa) - In view of the increasing criticism of the lack of crisis management in the corona pandemic, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has reshuffled his cabinet and re-appointed the heads of six ministries.
The names of the new ministers should be published in the official gazette, according to a message from the communications ministry in Brasília on Monday evening (local time).
Accordingly, the departures include Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo and Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva, with whom the ministerial carousel began on Monday.
They were followed by career diplomat Carlos Alberto Franco França and General Walter Souza Braga Netto, previously "Chefe da Casa Civil", comparable to the head of the Chancellery.
The communication did not give reasons for the change in staff.
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Bolsonaro came under increasing pressure about a week ago when Brazil first registered over 3,000 corona deaths in 24 hours and exceeded the mark of 300,000 corona deaths in total.
The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, tightened the tone - also with a view to impeachment proceedings against the President.
Lira is also the leader of the «Centrão» - small and very small parties that swap their support for offices and posts and have now asserted their claims.
Bolsonaro's discourse from the election campaign that he would not capitulate to the “old policy” of “taking there, giving here” should be completely obsolete.
Rather, Bolsonaro is now “in the hands of the Centrão”, as the newspaper “O Globo” wrote.
And which he will try to satisfy with a view to the 2022 presidential election.
From his original government, which took office in January 2019, there are almost no ministers, especially important ministers.
The fact that Araújo from the ideological wing of the right-wing populist Bolsonaro's government had to resign is seen as a severe blow to Bolsonarism.
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Araújo had been accused of isolating Brazil on the international scene and placing the country in a poor position to purchase vaccines.
Araújo instigated throws with important trading partners such as China - the country from which Brazil imports drugs for the production of corona vaccines.
In addition, he forged an alliance with the government of then US President Donald Trump, which, according to critics, did not always go hand in hand with the desired concessions to Brazil, while Brazil broke with historical positions in international institutions such as the UN.
Araújo had also generated polemics in Brazil before the out-of-control corona pandemic.
He called the corona virus "Comunavirus" in reference to communism, he classified National Socialism as a left-wing movement and he dismissed climate change as a Marxist lie.
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Araújo's position on climate change, in particular, was an obstacle to talks between Brazil and the United States on the fight against deforestation in the Amazon.
The new US President Joe Biden had given the topic - as well as the European Union in the context of the plans for a free trade area with Mercosur - priority.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210330-99-21838 / 3