What happens when a political scandal tears through your country’s government and suddenly you’re in charge, just a few months before the Olympics come to town?
Michel Temer might be about to find out.
If lawmakers decide to launch an impeachment trial against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff this week, Temer will take the reins for 180 days and become interim President. If she’s found guilty, he could end up finishing out her term.
Here are five things you need to know about Temer.
1. Wall Street likes him.
Temer, a 75-year-old attorney and former speaker of the House known as a backroom negotiator, is someone investors seem to like.
He’s head of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, which released a plan last fall detailing how it would help the country’s economy rebound.
The Financial Times called it “the ultimate investors’ wish list.”
As political turmoil picked up steam earlier this year and the possibility of a change in leadership — with Temer at the helm — became increasingly likely, Brazil’s Bovespa index has been trading at higher levels and the value of Brazil’s currency has increased.
2. Most Brazilians don’t.
A majority of Brazilians have said they think Temer should also be impeached and that they would prefer new elections. In an exclusive interview with CNN last month, Temer said that’s not an option Brazil’s constitution allows. But if the impeachment process goes forward, Temer said, getting Brazilians back on board with his government will be a priority.
That didn’t convince one Brazilian lawmaker, who decried Temer as he voted to impeach Rousseff last month.
“Michel Temer is like a vampire from these horror movies. … It’s like a virus, when immunity fails, the virus comes and contaminates the whole body. And it has contaminated this house,” Rep. Weliton Prado said.
3. His wife is a former beauty queen with his name tattooed on her neck.
But there’s at least one Brazilian who’s firmly in Temer’s camp: his wife.
Marcela Temer, a 32-year-old former beauty queen, has his name tattooed on her neck.
When Michel Temer published a book of poetry several years ago, titled “Anonymous Intimacy,” Marcela Temer told Brazilian media she’d inspired at least a few of the poems within its pages.
4. He hasn’t been investigated in the bribery scandal shaking Brazil, but he could be.
Many politicians from Temer’s party have been charged in connection with a far-reaching corruption scandal tied to Brazil’s state oil company.
Temer is not under investigation, but his name has been mentioned in some testimonies tied to the case.
He told CNN he had nothing to do with the scandal.
5. His parents were immigrants from Lebanon.
Officials estimate that between 7 million and 10 million people in Brazil have Lebanese ancestry.
Temer is one of them. His parents left Lebanon in the 1920s for Brazil, where Temer was born.
“My father always said that Brazil is the place to ‘make America,’ and by ‘make America’ he meant the place to grow — to prosper,” Temer told Lebanon’s Executive magazine in 2014.
Since taking office in Brazil, Temer has visited Lebanon a few times.
Residents of Btaaboura, the small town in northern Lebanon where Temer’s family has roots, are big fans of the Brazilian official, according to local media.
There’s already a street named after him there.
