Rui Costa (politician)

Rui Costa
Costa in 2024
Chief of Staff of the Presidency
Assumed office
1 January 2023
PresidentLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Preceded byCiro Nogueira
51st Governor of Bahia
In office
1 January 2015 – 31 December 2022
Vice GovernorJoão Leão
Preceded byJaques Wagner
Succeeded byJerônimo Rodrigues
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
1 April 2014 – 31 December 2014
ConstituencyBahia
In office
1 February 2011 – 5 January 2012
ConstituencyBahia
Chief of Staff of the Governor of Bahia
In office
5 January 2012 – 1 April 2014
GovernorJaques Wagner
Preceded byEva Chiavon
Succeeded byBruno Dauster
Secretary of Institutional Relations of Bahia
In office
15 January 2007 – 1 April 2010
GovernorJaques Wagner
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byPaulo Cezar Lisboa
Member of the Municipal Chamber of Salvador
In office
1 January 2001 – 15 January 2007
ConstituencyAt-large
Personal details
Born (1963-01-18) 18 January 1963 (age 61)
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Political partyPT (1980–present)
SpouseAline Peixoto
Children4
Alma materFederal University of Bahia
ProfessionEconomist

Rui Costa dos Santos (born 18 January 1963) is a Brazilian economist and politician who has served as the Chief of Staff of the Presidency since 1 January 2023. He previously served as governor of Bahia from January 2015 to December 2022. He is affiliated with the Workers' Party (PT).

In January 2007, invited by the Governor Jaques Wagner, Rui Costa took over the Secretariat of Institutional Relations (Serin), where he stayed until 2010. In Serin, Rui developed a new model of integration between the executive and legislative state with federal entities and social movements. The initiative was enhanced with the launch of the Institutional Relationship System (SRI), designed to speed up the progress of claims and standardize care.

In 2010 he was elected federal deputy for the PT, again with the highest number of votes of the PT bench.

Rui Costa was chosen as the PT candidate for the State of Bahia in elections in 2014, and elected in the 1st round with 54.53% of the votes, against 37.39% of his main opponent, Paulo Souto. In 2018, he was reelected with over 75% of the votes in the first round, easily defeating Zé Ronaldo.

Rui Costa is considered a moderate among his party. As governor, he privatized the state owned supermarket, approved a pension reform, implemented public–private partnerships for education and health and supported electoral alliances with the PSDB and Democrats, center right historical rivals of PT, in the 2022 presidential election in order to defeat Bolsonaro.

Criticism

Following the 2015 killing of 12 men, including four teenagers, by state police, Amnesty International published a Huffington Post article on its website, reporting that official figures from the Annual Report of Public Security, reveal that, each day, "at least six people are killed by police officers in Brazil" and that the true number is likely higher, as "most states across the country prefer to keep these alarming figures under wraps." Costa was widely criticized for his public response, including a false narrative of events and declaring the police as "heroes".

The ill-conceived comparison of a mass killing with an adrenaline-pumping football match is a sad illustration of the public security problems still experienced in Brazil – where mostly poor, young black men pay the price for the actions of a violent, militarized and poorly trained police force that has gone unchecked for far too long.

— Police killings in Brazil: 'My taxes paid for the bullet that killed my grandson'

Al-Jazeera also reported the killings and that the largest Black population in Brazil, resides in Costa's home, the Bahia state capitol, Salvador da Bahia, and that "80 percent of those killed by police in Brazil are young, black and poor."


This page was last updated at 2024-03-19 03:54 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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