Brazil's Education Minister Resigned Amid Serious Suspicion of Corruption Splashing Evangelical Pastors

Brazil's Minister of Education, Milton Ribeiro, resigned on Monday amid serious suspicions of corruption that also spatter evangelical pastors who make up President Jair Bolsonaro's political base.

Ribeiro, also pastor of a Presbyterian church, had been on the tightrope since last week, but Bolsonaro so far supported him, to the point of declaring that he put a “face on fire” for the minister, who was the fourth occupant of that spite since 2019, when the leader of the far right came to power.

Ribeiro's resignation, announced by him in a statement, comes on the eve of a major reform of the Government, which Bolsonaro will possibly announce on Friday, forced by the decision of 10 of his 23 ministers to resign to run for elective office in the elections next October.

The suspicions were born from an audio obtained by the newspaper Folha de São Paulo in which Ribeiro comments that the budgets of the Ministry of Education have among its priorities projects promoted by pastors of Pentecostal churches related to the Government.

“My priority is to attend, first, to the municipalities that most need, and secondly, to all the friends of Pastor Gilmar,” says the minister, referring to a religious leader who is very close to Bolsonaro, adding that this is “a special request” from the “President of the Republic” himself.

Ribeiro denied that Bolsonaro had asked him to do so, but both the Prosecutor's Office and the Supreme Court considered the suspicions to be “serious” and initiated an investigation.

Their situation worsened on Monday, when influential pastors of evangelical churches, who have enormous power in Bolsonaro's political base, joined the opposition in demanding his resignation.

Ribeiro had taken over in July 2020 in place of economist Carlos Alberto Decotelli, who was in office for only five days and resigned amid allegations of falsehoods in his resume.

In turn, Decotelli had taken over in place of Abraham Weintraub, a controversial far-right agitator who had resigned a month earlier amid heavy pressure from the parliamentary base of the Government.

Weintraub behaved more as an activist than as a minister and his attitude caused serious misgivings even in the most moderate sectors that support the Government.

Bolsonaro's Prime Minister of Education had been the Brazilian naturalized Colombian philosopher Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez, who also imposed a strong ideological burden on his brief administration, which lasted three months and ended with his demanded resignation, as happened with Weintraub, even by sectors related to the government.

This same Monday, Ribeiro's resignation was already conjectured, coinciding with the cabinet reform that Bolsonaro will announce this week.

According to sources close to the government, despite defending Ribeiro, Bolsonaro decided to take advantage of this reform to facilitate his departure, in order to minimize the impact of an alleged corruption case at a time when the president is preparing to attempt re-election.

(With information from EFE)

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