Brazil’s Vice President Takes Over, Draws Fire for Choice of Minister

Itamar Franco became Brazil’s acting president Friday and immediately created controversy by naming a little-known politician from a poor state to the key post of finance minister.

In a low-key ceremony that lasted four minutes, Franco, formerly vice president, took over from President Fernando Collor de Mello, who was stripped of power by a vote of Congress on Tuesday.

Franco’s first appointment was Rep. Gustavo Krause as finance minister.

Krause, 46, of the far-right Liberal Front Party, is a lawyer and former mayor from the sugar-producing northeastern state of Pernambuco. He also was finance minister there.

He will share management of the world’s ninth-largest economy with Planning Minister Paulo Haddad, an economist. Collor had merged the planning and finance ministries into a single economics ministry, a move Franco reversed.

The selection of Krause drew fire from many business people, labor leaders and investors.

“The country needed someone well-known as finance minister, someone who could encourage the public, the nation’s workers,” said Luis Antonio Medeiros, head of the powerful metalworkers union in Sao Paulo, in a TV interview. “This is discouraging.”

Franco defended the choice, saying Krause is honest and capable and chosen “because of his qualities and knowledge of the area.”

Franco will lead Latin America’s largest nation while the Senate tries Collor, Brazil’s first freely elected leader in 29 years, on corruption charges.