Bolsonaro’s privatizations plan all but buried

On July 6, 2020, Brazil’s Economy Minister Paulo Guedes promised to announce “four major privatization projects” within the next “30, 60, or 90 days.” This zeal for privatizations was no surprise coming from Mr. Guedes, who pledged to sell off “every single state-owned company” when he was appointed as Jair Bolsonaro’s economic tsar in 2018. But a full 205 days since the Economy Minister’s bold promise, nothing substantial has been announced — and the recent resignation of Wilson Ferreira Junior as CEO of state-owned energy company Eletrobras sinks a knife into the back of Mr. Guedes’ hopes to shrink the Brazilian state.

Mr. Ferreira Junior justified his departure from Eletrobras by saying that the firm’s privatization process “[hadn’t] gained any traction.” The news led to the company’s shares in New York crashing 11 percent on Monday and then 8 percent in São Paulo on Tuesday (the Brazilian stock market remained closed on January 25 due to a local holiday).

The outgoing CEO led Eletrobras for nearly five years and consistently supported privatization as the only solution for the company to recover...