MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro announces cabinet reshuffle and casts doubts on his running for a second term as Brazil's president next year

Bolsonaro also said he was not sure he would run in next year's presidential elections

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro Wednesday announced he was evaluating a cabinet reshuffle and also expressed doubts about running for a new term in office in October 2022.

“We are working on a small ministerial change, which must take place next Monday to be precise, to continue administering Brazil,” Bolsonaro said in a radio interview.

The most important change would be the creation of a Labor Ministry to be named “Social Security and Employment,” Economy Minister Paulo Guedes admitted Wednesday.

Brazil's current head of the Civil House (a position similar to that of a Cabinet Chief) Onix Lorenzoni is believed to be the person to be appointed at the helm of the new Ministry.

Guedes also explained the new set of measures to be announced by Bolsonaro shortly would speed up “the rate of job creation in Brazil.”

The new ministry would take over the duties currently handled by the Secretariat of Employment which functions within the Economy Minister and which would consequently be dissolved, thus reducing Guedes' competencies which have led to him being called a “super minister.”

Brazil's current unemployment stands at 14.8 million citizens in addition to the 6 million “discouraged,” who do not have a job and have stopped looking for one following multiple unsuccessful attempts, according to the latest report from the Permanent Survey by Household Sample of the state National Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Bolsonaro also announced Wednesday that he had instructed Guedes to release frozen resources from the ministries, which are provided for in the Budget Law.

According to O Globo, Senator Ciro Nogueira, of the Progressive Party (PP, conservative), and leader of the parliamentary bloc known as “Central”, a coalition of various forces which make up Bolsonaro's support in Congress, is poised to take over the Civil House.

The leftist Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party (PT, left), who lost the 2018 presidential elections to Bolsonaro, said the Government's alliance with “Central” was leading the country “backwards.”

Bolsonaro further stirred the political arena when asked about his candidacy for the October 2022 elections, he replied that “I still do not know if I will” run for a second term.

Former President Lula da Silva of the PT leads Bolsonaro in all polls published this year, in some of which he even projected to win in the first round.