Videos and publications circulate in which the current Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, makes mistakes when adding the number of his team members, 8 plus 4 equals 11, indicating that the minister is not qualified for the position, because he cannot. Do the addition. Of course, this is an exaggeration. Agronomist and Master in Development and Environment from the Federal University of Ceará, the minister must have been confused at the time. This kind of criticism is dishonest, as well as the kind that said that Eduardo Pazuelo was not fit for the position of Minister of Health because he admitted that he did not know about SUS.
The criticisms faced by General Pazuelo during his tenure as Minister of Health raise important questions about the attributes necessary for a holder of the post of Secretary of State. Many of Pazuello’s criticisms can be summed up in two arguments: 1. Pazuello was not a doctor and had no experience in the health field and 2. His performance could have been a disaster because of the team he had assembled to run the ministry during the pandemic.
I’ll start with the last argument. Could Pazuello’s management assessment be related to the team he assembled? he can. However, the assessments available on the Internet, or most of them, conducted by “experts” in the health field, have limitations: they are specialists ideologically linked to parties that were in opposition to the government that Pazuelo served. So these are very partial reviews. To them, Pazuello is a disgrace and has done nothing commendable. This is unreasonable and unbelievable when it comes to evaluating someone’s performance.
And what about Pazuello’s credentials to take on the job? Was it inappropriate, as most of the press and opposition to the Bolsonaro government asserted? The current Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, has no education activism in his curriculum. He served as Secretary of State for Cities and Agricultural Development, but had no professional experience in education. Does that also make you unfit for the job? Nicia Trindade, the current Minister of Health, is not a doctor or trained in health, does that make her unfit for the position?
When Pazuelo was a minister, information that he had received training in logistics, a qualification he would have been remembered for choosing, was denied by several news websites. Pazuello had not been trained, but served as a general in planning, programming, and budget control consulting for the Army Logistics Command. He commanded the logistical support base for the army and its forces during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the Royal Jordanian Federation. He headed the field hospital in Roraima, which manned a battalion of 600,000 Venezuelans. In terms of experience, would you say you are qualified for this position?
Vargas Negri is an economist, Jose Serra is a civil engineer and economist, and Ricardo Barros is a civil engineer. All of them were health ministers. Investigations comparing the performance of a larger number of technical ministers with a greater number of political ministers would contribute to a better understanding of the formation of ministerial governments in Brazil.
Research by political scientists Adriano Codato and Paulo Franz confirms that the professional profile of Brazil’s secretaries of state is quite diverse. In ministerial cabinets are both technicians, public corporations and higher education institutions, and politicians with a broad career in elective office. Codato and Franz argue that studies on ministerial staffing have focused on relationships between executive branches and, as such, have limited their analyzes to the composition of parties in ministries, thus paying little attention to ministers’ professional qualifications.
Codato and Franz’s consideration supports the hypothesis that many of the criticisms of the incompetence of previous ministers such as Pazuello and Milton Ribeiro were more political, in a partisan sense, than the criticisms that underpinned some of Brazil’s minister-selection traditions. A look at the training of education ministers in Brazil, for example, shows that the majority have a background in law. Milton Ribeiro holds degrees in law and theology and a doctorate in education. Many said he did not have the credentials to be education minister, even though he had held the positions of provost and deputy provost at McKinsey.
There are no rules that state that the selection for the position of Secretary of State must be eminently technical. In the United States, as in the United Kingdom, politicians and parliamentarians are the most frequently chosen to hold the position of minister. In the United States, the current Minister of Health, Xavier Becerra, has a law degree. Having more technical and more political ministers can be chosen by the serving president, depending on the balance of political power he wants. The minister is a political leader who runs a task force, his team. The minister can be a technician or a politician. But, be that as it may, ministers who are only political or only technical have advantages and disadvantages.
Luis Benedetto Canaverdi He is a businessman and graduated in Philosophy. Contact email: [email protected]
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Charlotte Whitmore is a contributor at Mediarunsearch.co.uk, covering a broad range of topics including news, politics, business, technology, sport, entertainment, and lifestyle. She focuses on delivering clear, balanced reporting and practical information that helps readers stay informed about current events and emerging developments. Her work highlights stories that matter to everyday audiences, with an emphasis on accuracy, relevance, and accessible journalism that keeps readers connected to the issues shaping the UK and beyond.