Who is José Sarney?
Sarney was born José Ribamar Ferreira de Araújo Costa in the Maranhão town of Pinheiro. He entered Congress in the 1950s, first with the PSD, then the UDN, and from 1965 with ARENA, which backed the generals. He became governor of Maranhão, then a senator and chief of the ruling PDS. In 1984 he left the PDS, headed the Liberal Front and ran for vice president beside Tancredo Neves. Tancredo fell sick on the eve of the March 1985 swearing-in and died in April, so Sarney held the presidency until 1990. From 1991 he sat for Amapá in the Senate, which he led four times, until January 2015. He holds no elected post now and writes novels.
Political views
- Called together the National Constituent Assembly, which produced the Constitution of 1988.Source: planalto.gov.br
- Supported the 1985 amendment that brought back direct presidential elections and let people who could not read vote.Source: planalto.gov.br
- The Cruzado Plan of 1986 swapped the currency and froze prices and wages in an attempt to beat inflation.Source: planalto.gov.br
- In 1987 he stopped interest payments on foreign debt, calling the move a technical need after reserves ran dry.Source: www18.fgv.br
- Together with Argentina's president Raúl Alfonsín he signed 1986 agreements pointing toward a shared regional market. He also reopened relations with Cuba.Source: www18.fgv.br
- During the Constituent Assembly he fought to keep a presidential system and to win a five-year term for himself.Source: www18.fgv.br
Legacy
His defenders say Sarney managed a fragile handover to democracy and avoided a military reaction. They also credit him with legalizing parties, lifting censorship, summoning the constitutional assembly and starting the road to Mercosur. His critics call him a product of the old order. They say he traded more than a thousand broadcast licenses for votes on a five-year term, and that he left the country in hyperinflation, with prices rising roughly 2,750 percent in his last year. His long grip on Maranhão, among the poorest states, is a frequent example of family rule. In 2009 a scandal about secret administrative acts also dented his standing in the Senate.