Fernando Collor de Mello
Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello is a Brazilian politician who served as the 32nd president of Brazil from 1990 to 1992, when he resigned in a failed attempt to stop his impeachment trial by the Brazilian Senate. Collor was the first president democratically elected after the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship. He became the youngest president in Brazilian history, taking office at the age of 40. After he resigned from the presidency, the impeachment trial on charges of corruption continued. Collor was found guilty by the Senate and disqualified from holding elected office for eight years. He was later acquitted of ordinary criminal charges in his judicial trial before Brazil's Supreme Federal Court, for lack of valid evidence.
Fernando Collor was born into a political family. He is the son of the former Senator Arnon Affonso de Farias Mello and Leda Collor
"Collor" is a Portuguese adaptation of the German surname Köhler, from his maternal grandfather Lindolfo Leopoldo Boeckel Collor.
His time as president was marked by the implementation of the "Collor Plan", the launch of a national privatization program, and the opening of the domestic market to imports, which had a significant impact on the growth of the consumer car market. The plan, initially well-received, ultimately deepened the economic recession, exacerbated by the elimination of over 920,000 jobs in 1990; in addition, allegations of political corruption involving Collor's treasurer, Paulo César Farias, made by his brother Pedro Collor de Mello, led to an impeachment process against him. Before the process could be finalized, the president resigned on December 29, 1992, handing over the position to his vice president, Itamar Franco, just hours before being convicted by the Federal Senate for crimes of responsibility, resulting in the loss of his political rights for eight years. During his presidency, he signed the Treaty of Asunción in 1991, the founding document of the Southern Common Market. He merged IAPAS and INPS, creating the current federal agency, the National Social Security Institute. He led the proceedings of the "Earth Summit" at ECO-92. He also officially approved the demarcation of the Yanomami Indigenous Territory.
Later, after some time living in obscurity, Collor served as Senator for Alagoas from February 2007 to February 2023. He first won election in 2006 and was reelected in 2014. In August 2017, Collor was accused by Brazil's Supreme Federal Court of receiving around US$9 million in bribes between 2010 and 2014 from Petrobras subsidiary BR Distributor. On April 24, 2025, his immediate arrest was ordered to serve his sentence by the Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes. In the early hours of April 25, he was arrested by the Brazilian Federal Police.
Early career
Fernando Collor was born on August 12, 1949, to Leda Collor and Arnon Afonso de Farias Mello, in a very affluent and politically well-connected family. His father was governor and later senator for the state of Alagoas. He has two brothers, Pedro and Leopoldo, and two sisters, Ledinha and Ana. His grandfather, Lindolfo Collor, was a direct descendant of some of the first German immigrants that arrived in Brazil in 1824. Despite being born in Rio de Janeiro, Fernando spent his childhood in the cities of Maceió, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília.Collor graduated in economic sciences, in 1972, at the Federal University of Alagoas. That same year, he become president of the Gazeta de Alagoas, a newspaper that was run by his family's media conglomerate. In 1975, he married his first wife Celi Elisabete Júlia Monteiro de Carvalho, with whom he had two children. He married a second time, with Rosane Malta in 1984. No children were born from this union. In 2006, he married Caroline Medeiros, with whom he would have two children. He also had a child born out of wedlock.
Collor became president of Brazilian football club Centro Sportivo Alagoano in 1976. After entering politics, he was successively named mayor of Alagoas' capital Maceió in 1979, elected a federal deputy in 1982, and eventually elected governor of the small Northeastern state of Alagoas in 1986.
During his tenure as governor, he gained national attention for his purported efforts to challenge high salaries among public servants, whom he referred to as marajás . The effectiveness of his policies in reducing public expenses remains a subject of debate. However, his stance on the issue significantly increased his popularity across the country, bolstered by appearances on nationally televised broadcasts—an unusual platform for a governor from a smaller state like Alagoas.
Although he gained national prominence as governor of Alagoas and positioned himself as an anti-corruption and anti-establishment candidate for the presidency, his career was marred by corruption scandals dating back to his tenure as mayor of Maceió. Earlier in his life, when he was a Federal Deputy in the National Congress, Collor was regarded as a relatively low-profile politician, primarily proposing legislation that appeared to favor his family's business interests.
Presidency (1990–1992)
In 1989 Collor defeated Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a controversial two-round presidential race with 35 million votes.In December 1989, days prior to the second round, businessman Abílio Diniz was the victim of a sensational political kidnapping. The act was asserted by some to be an attempt to sabotage Lula's chances of victory by associating the kidnapping with the left wing. At the time, Brazilian law barred any party from addressing the media on the days prior to election day. Lula's party thus had no opportunity to clarify the accusations that the party was involved in the kidnapping. Collor won in the state of São Paulo against many prominent political figures. The first president of Brazil elected by popular vote in 29 years, Collor spent the early years of his presidency battling inflation, which at times reached rates of 25% a month.
The very day he took office, Collor launched the Plano Collor, implemented by his finance minister Zélia Cardoso de Mello. The plan attempted to reduce the money supply by forcibly converting large portions of consumer bank accounts into non-cashable government bonds, while at the same time increasing the printing of money bills, a counterbalancing measure to combat hyper-inflation.
Free trade, privatization and state reforms
Under Zélia's tenure as Brazil's Minister of Finances, the country had a period of major changes, featuring what ISTOÉ magazine called an "unprecedented revolution" in many levels of public administration: "privatization, opening its market to free trade, encouraging industrial modernization, temporary control of the hyper-inflation and public debt reduction."In the month before Collor took power, hyperinflation was at 90 percent per month and climbing. All accounts over 50,000 cruzeiros, were frozen for several weeks. He also proposed freezes in wages and prices, as well as major cuts in government spending. The measures were received unenthusiastically by the people, though many felt that radical measures were necessary to kill the hyperinflation. Within a few months, however, inflation resumed, eventually reaching rates of 10 percent a month.
During the course of his government, Collor was accused of condoning an influence peddling scheme. The accusations weighed on the government and led Collor and his team to an institutional crisis leading to a loss of credibility that reached the finance minister, Zélia.
This political crisis had negative consequences on his ability to carry out his policies and reforms. The Plano Collor I, under Zélia would be renewed with the implementation of the Plano Collor II; the government's loss of prestige would make that follow-up plan short-lived and largely ineffective. The failure of Zélia and Plano Collor I led to their substitution by Marcílio Marques Moreira and his Plano Collor II. Moreira's plan tried to correct some aspects of the first plan, but it was too late. Collor's administration was paralyzed by the fast deterioration of his image, through a succession of corruption accusations.
During the Plano Collor, yearly inflation was at first reduced from 30,000 percent in 1990 to 400 percent in 1991, but then climbed back up to 1,020 percent in 1992. Inflation continued to rise to 2,294 percent in 1994.
Although Zélia acknowledged later that the Plano Collor didn't end inflation, she also stated: "It is also possible to see with clarity that, under very difficult conditions, we promoted the balancing of the national debt – and that, together with the commercial opening, it created the basis for the implementation of the Plano Real."
Parts of Collor's free trade and privatization program were followed by his successors: Itamar Franco even when he rejected privatization ideological, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula da Silva. Collor's administration privatized 15 different companies, and began the process of privatizing several others, such as Embraer, Telebrás and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. Some members of Collor's government were also part of the later Cardoso administration in different or similar functions:
Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, a minister in the previous Sarney and the following Fernando Henrique Cardoso administrations, stated that "Collor changed the political agenda in the country, because he implemented brave and very necessary reforms, and he pursued fiscal adjustments. Although other attempts had been made since 1987, it was during Collor's administration that old statist ideas were confronted and combated by a brave agenda of economic reforms geared towards free trade and privatization."
According to Philippe Faucher, professor of political science at McGill University, the combination of the political crisis and the hyperinflation continued to reduce Collor's credibility and in that political vacuum an impeachment process took place, precipitated by Pedro Collor's accusations and other social and political sectors which thought they would be harmed by his policies.