List of Presidents of Brazil

"See also: List of Brazilian monarchs"This is a list of Presidents of Brazil.

Old republic (1889-1930)

In 1889 the Republic was proclaimed in a coup d'etát led by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca, who deposed the Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II and formed a provisional government. Two years later, in 1891, a constitution was written, based on the federal republic of the United States of America and the country itself was named the Republic of the United States of Brazil. Deodoro was elected constitutional president by the Constituent Congress in the same year, immediately after the promulgation of the Constitution, but resigned ten months later after a coup d'étát in which he dissolved Congress was reversed. Then, Floriano Peixoto, Deodoro's vice-president and an opponent of the coup, was inaugurated. Peixoto was succeeded by the first elected president in Brazil, Prudente de Morais.

Although it was theoretically a constitutional democracy, the Old Republic was characterized by the power of regional oligarchies and the strict alternation of power between the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. The vote in the countryside was often controlled by the local land owner, and less than 6% of the population had the right to vote due to literacy requirements. Also, only wealthy individuals could vote or stand for election.

In 1930, when Brazil was suffering the effects of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, a revolution broke out in the country and the old republic ended. The president Washington Luís, who was supported by São Paulo oligarchies, broke the rule of alternation between São Paulo and Minas and supported a candidate who was also from São Paulo, Júlio Prestes. Prestes won the election, but Washington Luís was deposed three weeks before the end of his term and Prestes was never inaugurated.

The republic of 1946

In 1945, Vargas was deposed by a military coup led by two ex-supporters. Nevertheless, he would be elected president once again and his influence in Brazilian politics would remain until the end of the second republic. In this period, three parties dominated the national politics. Two were pro-Vargas – in the left, PTB and in the center-right, PSD – and another anti-Vargas, the rightist UDN.

This period was very unstable. In 1954, Vargas committed suicide during a crisis that threatened his government and he was followed by a series of short-term presidents. In 1961, UDN elected the party's first president, Jânio Quadros, who resigned seven months later. In that time, the president and the vice-president were voted separately. The vice-president was a political enemy of Jânio Quadros, the leftist João Goulart. A brief crisis had taken place, and the solution was a parliamentarism system, in which Goulart was inaugurated with reduced powers. A plebiscite in 1963 restored presidencialism and a military coup deposed Goulart in 1964, starting the military dictatorship.

Notes

ee also

*History of Brazil
*List of Brazilian monarchs
*List of Brazilians