Covid-19 crisis chips away at Paulo Guedes’ image

With his name dragged through the muck on social media as the Brazilian Real reaches new lows on a daily basis amid Covid-19-related panic, Brazil’s economic tsar Paulo Guedes seems a shadow of the man who, less than six months ago, celebrated the approval of a comprehensive pension reform the likes of which none of his predecessors had managed to do. So, what happened?

Paulo Guedes’ astral hell began before the novel coronavirus had even reached Brazil. A mix of weak economic perspectives, miscommunication, political jostling, and a lack of support from President Jair Bolsonaro himself have taken a major toll on the Economy Minister’s political capital. Now, however, what was once restricted to the corridors of Brasilia has now reached the wider population. 

According to Rafael Cortez, a political analyst at consultancy Tendências, Mr. Guedes over-politicized 2019 and misjudged the support in Brasilia for his reformist economic agenda. “This reached a new level after his remarks about civil servants [who he referred to as ‘parasites’] and using domestic workers as an example to talk about foreign exchange rates. This increases a process of wear that, at first, was limited to the political elite,” he tells The Brazilian Report.   

It is undeniable that Paulo Guedes remains one of the most important names...