Brazil’s new leader, Michel Temer, seeking to unite a splintered nation, has selected a cabinet of ministers from across this sprawling country — young, old, northerners, southerners. But of some two dozen named so far, all are men and none are black. That has drawn instant and intense criticism.
“After the governments of the Workers’ Party, which included women and blacks, the plan so far is for a Temer government without diversity,” wrote Miriam Leitao, a widely-read columnist for O Globo newspaper and critic of the outgoing government, in a comment echoed on social media. “It starts off looking like the past.”
Temer took over as Brazil’s acting president on Thursday after Dilma Rousseff, the country’s first woman president, was suspended from her post to face an impeachment trial. The early controversy underscores the numerous challenges he faces in coalescing the broad support he needs to run Latin America’s largest economy.
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