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Jango

Goulart in 1961

João Belchior Marques Goulart (1 March 1919 – 6 December 1976), commonly known as Jango, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 24th president of Brazil from 8 September 1961 until a military coup d'état deposed him on 1 April 1964. He was considered the last left-wing president of Brazil until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2003.

Biography[]

Joao Goulart was born in Itacurubi, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil on 1 March 1919, and he became a lawyer before joining the nationalist right-wing Brazilian Labor Party. He was Minister of Labor from 1953 to 1954, and served as Juscelino Kubitschek's Vice-President from 1955 to 1961. An incompetent politician whose prominence rested largely on the patronage of Vargas, he was unable to avoid his country's economic decline as indicated by an annual inflation rate of over 100% and economic growth of merely 2%. His period in office saw the polarization of Brazilian society into various hostile factions and interest groups. Opposed by most governors of the federal states, his challenge to the elites through the nationalization of oil refineries and other populist measures triggered a little-resisted military coup in 1964. He died in Mercedes, Corrientes, Argentina in 1976, with the official explanation being a heart attack, but poisoning being suspected.

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