Another Setback for Civilian President-Elect : New Brazilian Leader Has His 2nd Operation

Brazilian President-elect Tancredo Neves, who could not take office five days ago because of emergency abdominal surgery, underwent a second operation Wednesday to relieve an intestinal obstruction.

Physicians who are attending the 75-year-old president-elect said the two-hour operation removed intestinal adhesions that had caused a blockage and digestive disorders. Neves’ condition after the second operation was described in a medical bulletin as “normal.”

The surgery on Neves was conducted by a team of specialists assembled at the modern public hospital in Brasilia, the inland capital, where Neves was to have been sworn in last Friday.

The delay in Neves’ inauguration as Brazil’s first civilian president in 21 years has set back the start of a new democratic government here.

Uncertainty over the extent of his illness has spread since the bulletins about his first operation, which came only a few hours before he was supposed to have been sworn in before congress. That operation was for an intestinal inflammation known as diverticulitis, which required removal of a segment of the small intestine to avoid peritonitis, which can be fatal.

Jose Sarney, Neves’s vice president, took office before congress as scheduled and has been acting president since Friday. He installed a new Cabinet, and the new democracy got under way legally.

The new government announced some immediate measures, including a 10% spending cut and a prohibition on new hiring or investments for 90 days, to combat inflation. Price controls were also imposed on a variety of consumer goods.

But the full functioning of the government has been limited by Neves’ absence. For instance, Finance Minister Francisco Dornelles canceled a scheduled appearance before Congress to set out the government’s economic program and said he would only make his report after Neves takes office.

When that will be remains uncertain. The medical bulletins have said the president-elect had responded normally to his emergency surgery, without any complications other than those in his digestive system. With the second operation, the date when Neves will be able to resume his political activities, even from a hospital room, seems even further away.

Luis Diegues, a federal deputy who is a physician and a friend of the Neves family, said at the hospital that a full convalescence could take a month.