Temer could recreate ministries if impeachment is completed.

247 - Interim President Michel Temer has signaled that he may review the ministerial model he adopted if President Dilma Rousseff is definitively removed from office through impeachment, a process that could conclude in August.

The signal was given during a meeting with the former leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), José Rainha, who is now active in the National Front for the Struggle in the Countryside and the City. Temer has been under pressure to restructure the ministries after merging several departments, including the Special Secretariat for Family Agriculture, which had ministerial status and is now subordinate to the Civil House.

"The countryside will not accept (the end of the ministry's ministerial status). The interim president said that, as things stood, he needed to renegotiate the public administration. And that he is committed to creating the conditions for the Ministry of Agrarian Development to return," said the national leader of the National Struggle Front, Carlos Lopes.

Lopes said that the meeting highlighted the need to "maintain the leading role of rural policies" and that "agrarian reform will indeed happen, due to the necessity of social policy in the country."

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National Front for Struggle in Rural and Urban Areas asks Temer to recreate the Ministry of Agrarian Development.

Yara Aquino – Representatives of the National Front for Struggle in the Countryside and Cities (FNL) met today (1st) with the interim president, Michel Temer, and presented the movement's list of demands, which includes the recreation of the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA). Other items on the agenda are the acceleration of agrarian reform and support for family farming.

José Rainha Júnior, who was a member of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) and is now part of the National Front, participated in the meeting. Rainha is an activist in the fight for land rights and was removed from the leadership of the MST due to political disagreements with the organization's top leadership.

Federal deputy Paulo Pereira (SD-SP), who was also present, reported hearing from Temer that any discussion about a reshuffling of the cabinet would only take place after the conclusion of the impeachment process, should Temer definitively assume the presidency.

"The president said he will only discuss this and his entire cabinet, including a cabinet reshuffle, after the impeachment issue is resolved. He didn't want to discuss it at this time, but he knows the importance of the Ministry of Agrarian Development, the rural movement, and family farming," said the congressman. According to him, the interim president recognized the importance of family farming for the country.

The national leader of the FLN and president of the National Confederation of Family Farmers (Conafer), Carlos Lopes, assessed the meeting as positive. "We presented the macro agenda of agrarian reform and family farming, we explained to the interim president the need to maintain the leading role of policies in the countryside, and that the Brazilian peasantry will not accept, from any government, the extinction of the Brazilian peasantry's agenda," he said.

Regarding the demand for the return of the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA), Lopes said that Temer informed him that, initially, he needed to make changes in public administration in order to balance the accounts. "The president said that, given the state of the country, it was necessary to restructure public administration, considering the size of the economic deficit the country is facing, and that he is committed to working with rural groups and representatives to create the conditions for the Ministry of Agrarian Development to return," he said.

After assuming the interim presidency of the Republic, Temer merged the MDA with the Ministry of Social Development. Last Monday (30), a decree published in the Official Gazette of the Union transferred to the Civil House the attributions of several bodies responsible for actions of agrarian reform and family farming.

Decree 8.780 transfers the Special Secretariat for Family Farming and Agrarian Development to the Civil House. The measure includes the Secretariats for Agrarian Reorganization, Family Farming, Territorial Development, and the Extraordinary Secretariat for Land Regularization in the Legal Amazon. It also stipulates that the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) will be subordinated to the Civil House.