Background
Fernando Collor de Mello was born on August 12, 1949, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Arnon Affonso de Farias Mello and Leda Collor de Mello.
economist entrepreneur politician
Fernando Collor de Mello was born on August 12, 1949, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Arnon Affonso de Farias Mello and Leda Collor de Mello.
Fernando Collor de Mello studied economics at the University of Brasilia and journalism in the Alagoas.
He opted to start his professional career in the world of communication and worked as an editor in the Jornal do Brazil before directing an own newspaper, Gazeta de Alagoa, and preside over the business group's family, which controls publishing and audiovisual business.
Phenomenally successful as a media businessman, Collor gathered both wealth and renown, and gained some international notoriety as somewhat of a playboy.
He entered politics in 1979 when he became mayor of Maceió, capital city of Alagoas. He served ably in that capacity until 1982, and then decided to take advantage of the policy of abertura, or gradual political democratization, permitted by General João Batista Figueiredo, last of the five generals who ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985.
In 1982 he was elected to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, serving the nation in Brasilia for four years as its youngest congressman, representing Alagoas. While in Congress his interest in, and official concern with, economic matters became marked, and he achieved sufficient publicity as a no-nonsense financial reformer. His special cause was the long-neglected northeast, including Alagoas, and he was easily elected governor of his home state in 1986.
As governor, Fernando Collor won a reputation for his statewide economic reforms, focusing on administrative efficiency, campaigns against corruption, and championship of major new social welfare measures. Regardless of his own personal wealth and good looks, the energetic governor gained a strong and devoted following among his state's less-advantaged. A national reputation was assured for his prosecution of highly paid state bureaucrats, and he became known as "the hunter of the Maharajahs. "
In 1989 Collor began his campaign for the presidency as candidate of the small National Reconstruction party, which controlled but five percent of the seats in Congress. Pledging to restructure the national economy, to protect the environment and ecology, and to initiate a responsible fiscal policy (which includes privatization of inefficient publicly-owned industries), Collor unleashed a media blitz unparalleled in Brazilian history. A bitter reaction by his two opponents revived long-standing class and religious antagonisms.
Although polls showed some erosion in support as the November 15 election approached, Collor's vision of "O Brasil Novo" ("The New Brazil") inspired enough voters of all social classes to lead the field of six candidates in the election, albeit with less than the constitutionally-mandated majority of votes cast.
Thus, a run-off election was scheduled for December 15, pitting Collor, an admirer of free-market economics and (more than any other Brazilian leader) the United States, against Leftist Luis "Lula" da Silva, candidate of the Workers' party. The final campaign was fierce and vitriolic, but despite Collor's elite status, his vision of a strong and modern Brazil, tied to the world's advanced democracies and combating both horrific inflation (up to 80 percent monthly) and government corruption, was sufficient to give him a slender electoral majority of 53 percent.
To help boost his image at home and give himself credibility abroad, the president-elect launched himself into a whirlwind of visits to foreign leaders. Following trips to neighboring Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, his next official venue was—pointedly—the United States, where he conferred with President George Bush and other government and international lending organization officials. He then continued on, maintaining an exhausting pace, to Tokyo, Moscow, Bonn, Rome, Paris, London, Lisbon, and Madrid. All made for colorful and heartening headlines in Brazil while generating goodwill and initial trade and debt talks abroad. Somehow, amidst this whirlwind, he also restructured Brazil's executive branch, reducing the 23 Cabinet departments to 12 "super ministries. "
By the date of his March 15 inauguration it was clear that Collor was poised to act immediately on two crucial fronts, both of them sensitive in the extreme. Announcing that "Brazil's efforts with the Third World have not given us anything concrete, " Collor signaled a major shift in Brazilian foreign policy designed to bond and integrate the nation with the United States (and other nations of the hemisphere) and the other important Western industrialized states. Domestically, in an attempt to curtail inflation, he announced a return to the cruzeiro unit of currency and a draconian package of economic austerity measures. Within this package was abandonment of wage and price indexing, temporary freezes of both, a crackdown on tax-dodgers, severe paring of the ranks of the federal bureaucracy, a freeze of 18 months on bank accounts, and a start on renegotiating Brazil's $110 billion foreign debt.
Collor confronted truly daunting problems, but he did so with a stronger rating in the polls than he enjoyed on election day, and many Brazilians were betting that his youth, optimism, "can do" attitude, and seemingly boundless energy would triumph. In 1991 Collor focused government attention on the need for creating home reservations for Brazil's native peoples. He also mounted a campaign urging the Group of Seven, the creditor nations, to help Brazil protect the Amazon Rainforests.
His reform efforts failing to produce progress in the eyes of the Brazilian public, Collor was impeached by the Chamber of Deputies on corruption charges in the fall of 1992. Before the trial began in December, and maintaining his innocence, he stepped aside to allow Vice-President Itamar Franco to become acting president. At the opening of his impeachment trial before the Brazilian Senate, Collor announced his resignation. He was convicted of corruption charges by a vote of 76 to 3. He was then barred from holding public office for eight years, and also faced possible criminal prosecution. In 1994, Collor was exonerated by the highest court in the land of all charges brought against him.
After his acquittal in the criminal trial, Collor again attempted to void the suspension of his political rights imposed by the Senate, without success, as the Supreme Court ruled that the judicial trial of the ordinary criminal charges and the political trial of the charges of impeachment were independent spheres. Collor thus only regained his political rights in 2000, after the expiration of the eight year disqualification imposed by the Brazilian Senate.
In 2000, Collor tried to run for mayor of São Paulo. His candidacy was declared invalid by the electoral authorities, as his political rights were still suspended by the filing deadline.
In 2002, with political rights restored, he ran for Governor of Alagoas, but lost to incumbent Governor Ronaldo Lessa, who was seeking reelection.
In 2006, Collor was elected to the Brazilian Senate representing his state of Alagoas, with 44. 03% of the vote, running again against Lessa. Collor has been, since March 2009, a Chairman of the Senate Infrastructure Commission.
Collor ran again for Governor of Alagoas in 2010. However, he lost the race, finishing narrow third after Lessa and an incumbent Teotonio Vilela Filho, thus getting eliminated from a runoff.
In 2014, Collor was reelected to the Senate with 55% of the vote.
On August 20, 2015, Collor was charged by the Prosecutor General of Brazil for corruption, as a development of Operation Car Wash. Details of the charge have been kept under wraps so as not to jeopardize the investigation.
In August 2017, Collor has been accused by the Brazil's Federal Supreme Court of receiving around 29 million of reais in bribes between 2010 and 2014 for operations of BR Distributor.
Brazilian businessman and politician, Fernando Collor de Mello became that nation's youngest president in 1990 and brought a dynamic, effervescent style to the leadership of a nation saddled with enormous debt and pressing social problems.
Fernando Collor de Mello also was awarded the National Order of the Southern Cross, the Order of Rio Branco, the Order of Naval Merit, the Military Order of the Tower and of the Sword, of Valour, Loyalty and Merit, the Order of Merit, the Order of the Condor of the Andes, the Order of Merit, the Order of Isabella the Catholic, the Order of the Liberator General San Martin, the Order of Merit, the National Order of Merit, the Order of Boyaca, the Most Exalted Order of the Crownof the Realm (1991), the National Order of Merit, the Order of the Liberator, the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
In 10 years of public life, Fernando Collor de Mello has been a member of five political parties, including Democratic Social Party, Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, National Reconstruction Party, Brazilian Labour Renewal Party, Brazilian Labour Party.
Fernando Collor de Mello was a member of the Federal Senate from Alagoas. From February 1, 1983 till February 1, 1987 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies.
Fernando Collor de Mello is an outgoing, charming personality enhanced by an almost fanatical devotion to physical fitness and sports—he was national karate champion, among other distinctions. He is able to communicate easily in English, French, Spanish, and Italian as well as his native Portuguese.
In 1975 Fernando Collor de Mello married Celi Elisabete Júlia Monteiro de Carvalho, with whom he had two sons, but they divorced in 1981. In 1980, he had a child with his mistress Jucineide Braz da Silva, Fernando Collor de Mello James Braz. In 1984, he had been remarried to Rosane Malta, a college freshman from Alagoa, they also divorced. In 2006, Fernando Collor de Mello married for the third time. The choice was Caroline Serejo Medeiros, with whom he had two twins.
Arnon Affonso de Farias Mello was a former governor of Alagoas and proprietor of the Arnon de Mello Organization, the branch of Rede Globo in the state.
Leda Collor de Mello was a daughter of former Labour Minister Lindolfo Collor.
Rosane Brandão Malta was the First Lady of Brazil during the presidency of her husband, Fernando Collor de Mello, from 1990 until 1992.
Caroline Serejo Medeiros is an architect of Alagoas.
