Soccer Star Pele Gets Cabinet Post in Brazil Administration

Call him Secretary Pele.

The most celebrated player in soccer history was named Wednesday to Brazil’s Cabinet by President-elect Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Pele will be the special secretariat for sports, a new position.

“He will be a symbol of the Brazil that succeeded and that started from the bottom,” Cardoso said.

Cardoso surprised reporters with his designation of the 54-year-old Pele, whose full name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Pele led Brazil to its first World Cup title. Since retiring as a player, he has become a millionaire businessman and sports announcer.

Other than Pele, most of Cardoso’s designations had been widely expected and included the architects of an economic plan that helped sweep him into office.

Cardoso, who is due to be sworn in Jan. 1, said all of his appointees have had distinguished public careers and said the selections were his personal choice and not the result of outside political pressures.

Cardoso named former Central Bank President Pedro Malan to the Finance Ministry and said he will be responsible for the overall coordination of economic policy.

He said Malan will lead a team of economists that designed and implemented an economic plan that has sharply reduced inflation and was largely responsible for Cardoso’s landslide October election victory.

Sen. Jose Serra, a leader of Cardoso’s Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), was chosen to head the important Planning Ministry, which will be responsible for maintaining the fiscal budget balance.

Career diplomat Luiz Felipe Lampreia, a former Brazilian ambassador to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, was named foreign relations minister.

Sen. Jose Eduardo Andrade Vieira, a key figure in agricultural trade negotiations, was named to the Agriculture Ministry.