Fernando Collor was born on 24 August in 1949 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Son of a wealthy family with extensive media properties, Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello was born on Aug. 24, 1949, in Rio de Janeiro. During his childhood, his father, Arnon Affonso de Mello, served as governor of Alagoas, a small state on Brazil's east coast, then as a member of the federal senate.
Collor's own political career began in 1979 when he was appointed mayor of Maceió, Maceio, the capital of Alagoas, by the military dictatorship then ruling Brazil. He was elected to the federal chamber of deputies in 1982, representing the pro-military Social Democratic Party (PDS). In 1985 he joined the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMBD). In 1986 he became governor of Alagoas.
As the presidential election of 1989 approached, Collor founded the Party for National Reconstruction (PRN), a conservative coalition charged primarily with promoting his presidential campaign. Propelled by a marketable image of youthful energy and good looks and by strong financial backing, Collor became a front-runner in a field of some 20 candidates by casting himself as an anti-government outsider, despite his close ties with two of the country's wealthiest and most powerful figures, SãoSao Paulo industrialist and politician Paulo Maluf, and especially Roberto Marinho, owner of the Rio-based O Globo media empire. Collor campaigned as a populist, denouncing the highly paid civil servants--dubbed "maharajas" by Collor and his followers--who had enriched themselves at taxpayer expense.
The first round of voting, in November, failed to produce a majority for any candidate but left the electorate with a clear choice between Collor and LuísLuis InácioInacio ("Lula") da Silva of the leftist Workers' Party. Collor won the runoff election with some 35 million votes, to 31 million for Lula.
During Collor's first year in office, his cabinet appointments, along with his economic and environmental policies, demonstrated originality and independence, if not always measured judgment. Among his most dramatic initiatives were the freezing of bank accounts in an assault on inflation and the dynamiting of airstrips used by gold miners trespassing on Yanomami Indian lands in the Amazon rainforest. In 1991, however, Collor began to retreat from his more innovative strategies and to recast his administration to bring it more into line with the expectations of foreign creditors and international financial agencies. His new team was more forthcoming, for example, in the renegotiation of Brazil's enormous foreign debt, and more committed to the privatization of state-controlled enterprises.
By 1992, with Brazil's economy in the third year of a recession and inflation at a monthly rate of more than 20 percent, Collor's popularity had plummeted. Charges of bribe taking and influence peddling led to a massive popular campaign in favor of impeachment. In September 1992 the Chamber of Deputies voted 441 to 38 to impeach, forcing Collor to relinquish his presidential powers. In November, he was indicted for crimes of corruption. On December 29, minutes after his Senate trial began, he resigned as president. Nevertheless, on December 30 the Senate convicted him by a vote of 76 to 3, depriving him of political rights until 2001. The criminal charges remained pending.
