Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia (Brazilian Portuguese: [miˈʃɛw miˈɡɛw eˈli.ɐs ˈtemeʁ luˈli.ɐ]; born 23 September 1940) is a Brazilian politician, lawyer, poet and writer who served as the 37th president of Brazil from 2016 to 2019. He took office after the impeachment and removal from office of his predecessor Dilma Rousseff. He had been the 24th vice president since 2011 and acting president since 12 May 2016, when Rousseff's powers and duties were suspended pending an impeachment trial.
The Senate's 61–20 vote on 31 August 2016 to remove Rousseff from office meant that Temer succeeded her and served out the remainder of her second term. In his first speech in office, Temer called for a government of "national salvation" and asked for the trust of the Brazilian people. He also signaled his intention to overhaul the pension system and labor laws, and to curb public spending.
A 2017 poll showed that Temer's administration had 7% popular approval, with 76% of respondents in favor of his resignation. Despite widespread protests, Temer refused to step down. He did not stand for reelection as president in the 2018 Brazilian general election and was succeeded by Jair Bolsonaro.
Born in Tietê, São Paulo, Temer is the son of Nakhoul "Miguel" Elias Temer Lulia and March Barbar Lulia, Maronite Catholic Lebanese immigrants who came to Brazil in 1925. His parents, along with three older siblings, immigrated to Brazil from Btaaboura, a small village in northern Lebanon, to escape famine and instability due to World War I. In Brazil, his parents had five more children, and Temer is the youngest. Temer is not fluent in Arabic, but is able to discern the topic of a conversation in the language.
As a child, Temer dreamed of becoming a pianist. However, there were no piano teachers in his city. As a teenager, he wanted to be a writer. After failing chemistry and physics classes in his first year of high school, he gave up the "curso científico", which prioritized hard sciences and math. In 1957, he moved to São Paulo to finish high school in the "curso clássico", composed mainly of subjects in the humanities and languages.
In 1959, like his four older brothers he joined the Law School of the University of São Paulo, graduating in 1963. In his freshman year, he became involved with politics by becoming a treasurer of the school's students' union. In 1962, Temer ran for the presidency of the union, but was defeated by 82 votes.
Temer stayed neutral before the 1964 coup d'état. With the beginning of military rule, he moved away from politics. In 1974, he completed a doctorate in public law at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP).
In 1968, Temer began teaching constitutional law at PUC-SP, where he also taught civil law and was director of the postgraduate department and of the Brazilian Institute Of Constitutional Law as well as a member of the Ibero-American Institute of Constitutional Law.
Temer published four major works in constitutional law. His most famous book is Elements of Constitutional Law, published in 1982, which sold over 240,000 copies. The book focuses on the organization of the Brazilian state, especially on the separation of powers.
His 2006 book Democracy and Citizenship highlighted the relevance of law and included some of his speeches as a federal deputy. In his works, he showed himself to be a supporter of parliamentarism and a political recall system, while opposing economic interventionism and tax increases.
However, he considered himself a writer only in 2013, when he published Anonymous Intimacy, a book of poems. It consists of 120 poems, many of which were written on napkins during his plane trips between São Paulo and Brasílla. Temer said writing poems helped him recover from the "barren arena of legislative politics".
Beginning in 1987 Temer served six consecutive terms in the Chamber of Deputies, and on three separate occasions served two-year terms as president of the Chamber (1997–1998, 1999–2000 and 2009–2010). Temer was also a member of the 1988 constituent assembly, which promulgated the current Constitution of Brazil. He became President of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), the largest party in Brazil.
Temer was the second Vice President of Lebanese origin, after José Maria Alkmin. His family originates from the town of Btaaboura in Koura District, near Tripoli in northern Lebanon.
In 2016, he was accused of having a lobbyist bribe others between 1997 and 2001 in ethanol deals through state-run oil company Petrobras. He was also under investigation for accepting more than $1.5 million in funds from construction company Camargo Correa, which works with Petrobras. Spreadsheets from the construction company listed Temer's name 21 times. The numbers next to his name added up to $345,000, which authorities alleged were bribes and which Temer said were legal campaign contributions. The claim was dismissed by the courts, and Temer denied any wrongdoing. Temer has also been accused of electoral fraud; in 2016, he allegedly solicited $2.9m in illegal campaign donations in 2014. Part of investigation is into whether bribe money helped fund the 2014 campaign that saw Dilma Rousseff re-elected president with Temer as her running mate; Temer also denies this.
In 2017 Brazil's federal police said that investigators have found evidence the president received bribes to help businesses. A released video made by investigators shows Rodrigo Rocha Loures, former Temer aide, carrying a suitcase filled with about $150,000 in cash allegedly being sent from JBS S.A. to the president.
In 2018, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice ordered Temer be included in an ongoing investigation into $3.07 million in illicit funds his Brazilian Democratic Party allegedly received from construction firm Odebrecht.
Relations with the American Embassy
According to leaked diplomatic cables, Temer provided information to the U.S. Embassy in Brazil in 2006. Temer is described as gaining the loyalty of lower class Brazilians by strengthening social programs and opposing Lula da Silva. The report has the status "sensitive but unclassified" with Temer stating that Lula da Silva "might finally begin to heed his friends on the left" and would "be led away from the orthodox macro-economic policies that have dominated his first term".