Brazilian President Quickly Replaces Finance Minister : Latin America: State governor gets post. Predecessor, who resigned, admitted slanting data to aid candidate.

Hoping to avoid a major interruption in Brazil’s effort to get its economy on track, President Itamar Franco named a new finance minister Sunday, just one day after Rubens Ricupero resigned from the post following statements that he used his office to aid a government-backed presidential candidate.

Ciro Gomes, governor of the northeastern state of Ceara and the sixth finance minister since Franco took office in 1992, said the programs and staff of his predecessor will continue unchanged.

“I arrive as an admirer of Ricupero,” Gomes said from Fortaleza, the state capital. “Ricupero is a profound example of dignity and how to be a Brazilian of great moral stature, a man who is devoted to the cause of his nation.”

Ricupero resigned Saturday after inadvertently saying on television that he slanted economic statistics to aid presidential candidate Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Ricupero’s predecessor as finance minister and Franco’s choice as president.

Financial observers greeted Gomes’ appointment with surprise. Most financial and political analysts had expected the president to name Central Bank President Pedro Malan or economic policy adviser Edmar Bacha, close friends of Cardoso’s who helped him design the country’s economic scheme when he headed the Finance Ministry.

“It’s a surprise,” said Alvaroa Augusto Vidigal, president of the Sao Paulo stock market. “But Gomes is a good name, a respectable name.

“The idea of the president of keeping the same economic team will leave a good impression on the market. For the next three days, the market will have a response, a downturn probably, but in the long run this won’t interfere because we believe Ciro Gomes is a good name.”

Gomes, a 36-year-old up-and-comer, will be in charge of steering the country’s 2-month-old effort to stop the runaway inflation that has plagued Brazil for nearly two decades. Since the introduction of the plan and a new currency July 1, inflation has fallen from 50% a month in June to 5% in August.

Bolivar Lamonier, a Sao Paulo professor and political scientist, said that by accepting Ricupero’s resignation and quickly naming a successor, Franco may have minimized the political damage of Ricupero’s statements.

Opposition candidates, particularly Workers’ Party candidate Luis Inacio (Lula) da Silva, have been claiming for weeks that the government was diverting funds and using other measures to help Cardoso, who has gone from 20 points behind in polls to more than 20 points ahead in less than two months.

“(Franco’s) action shows a positive change,” Lamonier said. “Because Itamar changed right away, that shows that Brazil is now searching for good and decent politicians. We are discovering what is wrong and fixing it.”

Meanwhile, Ricupero, who had been in office only five months, said in a teary news conference outside his office in the capital, Brasilia, that he was sorry for statements Thursday to a television reporter that were inadvertently broadcast via satellite throughout the country without their knowledge and later published in newspapers.

Ricupero, a career diplomat and former ambassador to the United States, said his comments were “vain and arrogant.”

“I am a human being like anyone else and make mistakes the same as anyone else,” he said.

During the private chat, which preceded a formal interview, Ricupero said his office had released information that was helpful to Cardoso and held back information that might harm his campaign.

“I have no scruples,” he told the TV Globo reporter. “What is good, we take advantage of. What is bad, we hide.”

Ricupero also said during the conversation that his efforts to promote the economic plan had been a tremendous help to Cardoso’s campaign.

In recent weeks, Franco and aides have undertaken multibillion-dollar measures that could aid the candidate, including $770 million in wage increases for more than a million public workers and a promised $6.1 billion in farm credits.