This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

When news broke that Brazil’s president had sacked his controversial far-right education minister, any hopes that Jair Bolsonaro might have moderated his views lasted about as long as it took Brazilians to research his replacement.

The new minister, Abraham Weintraub, is an economist and university professor who spent most of his career in the financial sector and has voiced rightwing conspiracy theories – arguing last year that crack was deliberately introduced in Brazil as part of a communist plot.

Before joining Bolsonaro’s transition team to work on an overhaul of the pensions system, Weintraub was a professor at the Federal University of São Paulo. He worked 18 years at the Votorantim bank, becoming chief economist.

On Monday, Weintraub was brought in to replace Ricardo Vélez, whose brief stint in government was marked by a string of controversies.

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In February, Vélez wrote to schools instructing them to film students singing the national anthem and being read Bolsonaro’s campaign slogan.

He later told the conservative magazine Veja that Brazilians behaved like cannibals when abroad and stole things from hotels, and last week he was accused of “historical revisionism” after saying schoolbooks would be rewritten to whitewash Brazil’s 1964 military coup and 21-year dictatorship.

But education specialists expressed dismay at his replacement.

“I don’t think anyone who works in education is happy with this appointment,” said Daniel Cara, of the National Campaign for the Right to Education, a not-for-profit group – and a former leftist parliamentary candidate. “[Weintraub] does not have good experience and does not show appreciation for the area.”

Bolsonaro announced Weintraub on Monday on Twitter. “Abraham is a doctor, a university professor and has ample experience in management and the knowledge needed for the post,” he tweeted. He later corrected himself and said Weintraub had a master’s in administration and an MBA.

Both Abraham Weintraub and his brother Adam are specialists in pensions. His brother is part of Bolsonaro’s economic team.

“Today, South America and Brazil in particular are vital parts of a clear strategy by totalitarian socialist and communist groups to take power,” Weintraub told the Estado de S Paulo newspaper in a 2018 interview. In the same interview, he said that crack was deliberately introduced in Brazil and that the Colombian Farc rebel group had been “honoured guests” at the Saõ Paulo Forum, an annual gathering of leftist parties.

“Look at the files, it’s on the internet!” he said. (Farc were barred on at least two occasions, the Folha de S Paulo newspaper reported in 2008, and have since become a legal political party.)

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Cara expressed concern over what concrete projects Weintraub might introduce to improve education in a country where a third of the population from ages 15 to 64 is functionally illiterate. “He argues for reducing spending and Bolsonaro’s cultural war,” he said.

“It’s not clear he has the solid project for education on a national level that the position demands,” said Anna Conte, a junior school teacher in Rio.

After his appointment was announced on Monday, Weintraub praised Bolsonaro’s intellectual guru Olavo de Carvalho – a former astrologer and philosopher who berates his enemies with obscenity-laden YouTube videos from his home in Richmond, Virginia, and has questioned whether the world revolves around the sun.

“He has good ideas but I don’t follow literally what he says,” Weintraub told the Estado de S Paulo newspaper.