This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Brazil’s interim president, Michel Temer, has unveiled an all-male, conspicuously white cabinet to run one of the world’s most ethnically diverse nations as he promised to restore confidence in Latin America’s biggest economy.

Following the suspension of Dilma Rousseff, the country’s first female president, the new head of state called for unity and said his primary task was to form a government of “national salvation” that could restore Brazil’s credibility so it could attract investment.

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“Trust me,” he said in his inaugural speech at the Planalto presidential palace. “Trust the values of our people and our ability to recuperate the economy.”

His message came a few hours after he was accused of treachery by his former running mate Rousseff, who claimed she was forced out of office by “sabotage”, “open conspiracy” and a “coup”.

The sharply contrasting statements highlight the rancorousness of an impeachment battle that has curtailed 13 years of Workers’ party rule and divided the nation.

Rousseff was stripped of her powers on Thursday after losing a preliminary impeachment vote in the Senate. This followed a similar crushing defeat in the Congress in April. She now faces trial by the Senate on charges of doctoring government accounts to give an unrealistically healthy impression ahead of the 2014 election.

Temer – a senior figure in the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement party – was elected on Rousseff’s coat-tails in 2014, but recently abandoned his former government partner on the grounds that the country needed new leadership to get out of its deepest recession in decades.

The economy was the focus of his first speech. “It is essential to rebuild the credibility of the country abroad to attract new investments and get the economy growing again,” he said.

Adding fuelling to claims of betrayal, the 75-year-old constitutional lawyer had spent the past few weeks putting together the centre-right administration that he unveiled on Thursday.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Temer addresses his newly sworn-in ministers. Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters

Although he promised to maintain welfare programmes such as bolsa familia poverty relief, he has touted balancing the budget and getting inflation back under 10% as his priority.

In a sign of his commitment to austerity, Temer has slashed the number of cabinet posts from 31 to 22. But he may find it hard to cut other costs ahead of municipal elections and with unemployment already in double digits.

Whether this tough task can be achieved will depend largely on new finance minister Henrique Meirelles, who gained considerable kudos as central bank president under the first two Workers’ party governments. He will be charged with reining in expenses and encouraging other ministers to push ahead with privatisation, outsourcing and weakening stringent labour and pension laws.

Several appointments were controversial. Conservationists are alarmed that the top agriculture post has been given to “soyabean king” Blairo Maggi, who has recently been promoting a constitutional amendment to remove environmental licensing on public projects.

Despite the Zika epidemic, the new health minister, Ricardo Barros from the Progressive party, has no background in medicine. He becomes the fourth in little over six months to hold a portfolio which is much coveted because it has the biggest budget of any ministry.

While the markets are likely to be happy, the public will need a lot of convincing. Temer’s ratings are almost as low as those of the suspended president. He has a disapproval rating of 62% and support from fewer than one in seven voters, according to the most recent poll.

Temer and his cabinet are also tainted by corruption allegations. The interim president himself faces an impeachment challenge and has been barred from standing for office for eight years due to election violations. He has also been named in two plea bargains in the ongoing Lava Jato investigation into the kickback and bribery scandal at the state-run oil firm Petrobras.

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Half a dozen other members of his proposed cabinet, including new planning secretary Romero Jucá, also face charges by Lava Jato prosecutors.

Despite these problems Temer said he had “absolute confidence” in his ability to turn things around with the help of the population.

“It is urgent to restore peace and unite Brazil. We must form a government that will save the nation,” he said.

As he spoke there were minor scuffles outside the building, where several dozen anti-Temer protesters staged a lie-in. They were ejected by security guards with beatings and pepper spray.

Unity also appeared far from the mind of his predecessor, who has vowed to fight against her removal from office.

“I may have committed mistakes but I never committed crimes,” Rousseff said. “It’s the most brutal thing that can happen to a human being — being condemned for a crime you didn’t commit. No injustice is more devastating.”

Rousseff has only a slim chance of avoiding permanent removal from office. The final Senate vote – which requires a two-thirds majority – could come by September.

André César, a political consultant, said the new president will not be able to enjoy a honeymoon because he has to cut costs while keeping a range of political partners happy, in addition to the likely protest on the streets from social movements.

“In the very short term, turbulence will increase,” he said. “But if he can manage to advance his agenda in the first couple of months, then he can take a breath. The problem is coalition politics. There are several parties and politicians with different world views.”

Mauro Rochlin, an economist at the right-leaning Getúlio Vargas Foundation, praised Temer’s economic team but said he would need support from Congress to push ahead with the necessary policies.

“All the things that he needs to cut are in very sensitive, essential areas. There is no other way around it. It will be up to Congress to make important changes in spending policies. They will have to allow changes in public salaries and retirement, but the public sector is very sensitive and very mobilised.”

Leda Maria Paulani, a leftwing economist at the University of São Paulo who considers the new government to be illegitimate, acknowledged there may be an initial boost to GDP because the business community had got what it wanted.

But she warned that the long-term impact would be a rolling back of hard-won benefits for poor sectors of society, particularly if the government pushed austerity.

“This will have terrible results in terms of the rates of growth, unemployment and everything that goes along with a recession,” she said.