Franco, Itamar Augusto Cautiero (1931– )

Brazilian politician, vice-president 1990–92, president 1992–94, governor of Minas Gerais state 1999–2003. As president he was initially criticized by friends and opponents for a lack of clear policies. His greatest achievement was the introduction in 1994, under his finance minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso, of the Plano Real programme to stabilize an economy in which inflation had reached 6,000% in 1993. Cardoso defeated him in the October 1994 presidential election and subsequently implemented the Real programme which controlled inflation. Franco later became a critic of the Cardoso government and its privatization programme.

As vice-president 1990–92, he had a low-profile career until he became head of state when President Fernando Collor was removed from office to face impeachment on charges of corruption. After 1995, Franco served as Brazilian ambassador in Portugal, to the Organization of American States (in Washington, DC), and to Italy; and as governor of Minais Gerais he introduced a moratorium on state debt payments to the federal government in 1999 which worsened the national economic crisis.

Born in Minais Gerais state, he became a civil engineer before entering politics as mayor of his home town of Juiz de Fora in 1967. From 1974, he represented his home state in the Brazilian senate, as a member of the MDB (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro – Brazilian Democratic Movement), the official opposition to the military regime that ruled Brazil 1964–85. In 1989, Franco joined the PRN (National Reconstruction Party) and was the running-mate of the successful presidential candidate Fernando Collor de Mello, and become vice-president in 1990.