Tourism Minister is the 5th to leave Dilma's government

15/09/2011 - 10h14

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FROM BRASÍLIA

Without the support of his party, the PMDB, the Minister of Tourism, Pedro Novais, 81, resigned from office yesterday after Folha revealed that he used employees paid with public funds for private purposes.
Novais paid his housekeeper for seven years with funds from his office in Congress, when he was a representative. His wife used a congressional employee as a personal driver.
Novais is the fifth minister appointed by President Dilma Rousseff to resign in just over nine months of this administration, and the fourth to leave under suspicion of improprieties.
Novais delivered his resignation letter to Dilma at a meeting last night which lasted five minutes. The letter had only two sentences. "I comply with the necessity to ask you to excuse me from my obligations of office," wrote Novais. Since the start of this administration, Novais has only had one meeting alone with Dilma.
The signs that the Tourism officeholder was out of the game began to appear on Tuesday, the day that Folha revealed that his housekeeper was paid with public funds.

	Alan Marques/Folhapress
	The Minister of Tourism, Pedro Novais (PMDB)

At that time, the preference of the Presidential Palace to preserve the PMDB member was practically nil. Dilma said to interlocutors that she preferred to wait for a request to resign, in order not to offend the PMDB, which has for some time been unsatisfied with the pace and criteria of appointments to Executive positions.
A brief conversation between Dilma and her staff sealed the fate of the PMDB member: the Palace activated the vice president, Michel Temer, hospitalized in Sao Paulo that day, to articulate the exoneration "by request".
The formula reproduced the protocol used in all four previous dismissals, where the final act of exiting came from the minister and not the president. Formally, Dilma never removed the minister from the team.
Novais even rehearsed resisting in the final hours, but gave in upon seeing that he had lost the internal support of the PMDB. At the time he was trying to gather strength to continue in office, he found out about the statement of the party president, Valdir Raupp (PMDB-RO): "You can't compromise a legend because of one person."
At that level, even his political patron, the leader of the PMDB in Congress, Representative Henrique Eduardo Alves (PMDB-RN), wanted to keep him. Alves was the first to meet with the then minister yesterday morning. Temer had to travel hastily to Sao Paulo and meet with Alves and Novais late that afternoon.
In December, when Novais had already been chosen for the position, it was discovered that he had made use of funds from his office as representative to pay for a party at a motel in Maranhão.
Novais returned the money before taking the position at the ministry. But he began to find his position precarious in August, when the Federal Police instigated an operation that revealed fraud in ministry agreements and arrested members of Tourism's leadership.
Novais' replacement will be appointed by the PMDB. Among the options under consideration yesterday were the representatives Manoel Júnior (PB), Marcelo de Castro (PI), Leonardo Quintão (MG) and Gastão Vieira (MA). Temer announced to his party that the Presidential Palace will perform a careful analysis of the candidate list.

NATUZA NERY, ANA FLOR, CATIA SEABRA, FLÁVIA FOREQUE, MARIA CLARA CABRAL AND NÁDIA GUERLENDA

Translated by DAVE WOLIN

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