Political Career
Palocci was elected councilman in Ribeirão Preto in 1988. He did not finish his term because he stepped down to run in the election for the office of state deputy (which he won). In 1992, he resigned his term as deputy to assume the role of mayor of Ribeirão Preto, after winning the local election. It is during his administrations as mayor that Palocci is alleged to have led a major slush fund operation (see below) for the Workers' Party, a scheme denounced by one of his former secretaries, Rogério Buratti.
In 1995, he received the UNICEF’s Child and Peace prize for his work for the rights of infants and adolescents. In 1996, he received the Juscelino Kubitscheck Award from SEBRAE-SP, the São Paulo chapter of the Serviço Brasileiro de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas (Brazilian Service for Assistance to Small Businesses), for being the mayor of the São Paulo state city who offered the best support to small business. In 2002, he received the Mário Covas Award from SEBRAE again for his work on behalf of local small businesses.
Palocci was elected federal deputy in 1998. In 2000, he resigned his office so that he could run again in the mayoral election in Ribeirão Preto. He won the election, and thus was mayor of Ribeirão Preto again from 2001 to 2002. He resigned in 2002 so he could help Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's campaign for the Brazilian presidency. In 2003, when Lula was elected, Palocci officially resigned as the mayor of Ribeirão Preto and was nominated the Finance Minister of Brazil and became a key figure in the new government.
Along with former minister José Dirceu (who resigned and subsequently lost his political rights for involvement with the Mensalão scandal), Palocci was considered one of the most influential and strong ministers of Lula’s government.
On January 1, 2011, Palocci was appointed by President Dilma Rousseff as her Chief of Staff.
Read more about this topic: Antonio Palocci
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)