The next president of Brazil will be sworn in on January 5th, while the governors will assume their positions on the 6th, a change that will occur for the first time in the country’s history.
For more than three decades, the inauguration ceremonies for the heads of the Executive Branch have been held on January 1st, as determined by the . However, one changed the calendar, valid from the next electoral period.
The change aimed to avoid conflicts with New Year’s Eve celebrations and facilitate the participation of authorities. Until then, presidents and governors took office on the same day, which often made it impossible for governors to attend ceremonies held in Brasília.
The first president to take office on January 1st was Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in 1995. Before that, Fernando Collor de Mello took office on March 15, 1990, following a tradition of Constitution of 1946while an act on transitional rules of the new Constitution was in force.
Presidents like Juscelino Kubitschek (1956), Jânio Quadros (1961) e João Goulart (1961, after Jânio’s resignation), like the representatives during the military regime, took up their positions in March.
With the 1994 Constitutional Amendment and subsequent adjustments, January 1st was consolidated as the official date for presidential inaugurations from 1995 onwards. Since then, until today, all ceremonies have taken place on that date, totaling eight inaugurations, including re-elections of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva e Dilma Rousseff.
Since the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889, Brazil has had 39 people in the position of President of the Republic. However, when considering the different presidential terms — including reelections — this number rises to 43 presidencies. Lula, for example, was elected for three terms, while Getúlio Vargas governed the country in two distinct periods.
