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Modern Brazil |
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As the war in Europe drew to its close, Vargas was forced to resign and elections were held to appoint a successor. Going to the polls for the first time in 15 years, the electorate gave the majority of their votes to General Eurico Gaspar Dutra who had been Vargas' Minister of the Army during the war. A new democratic constitution was approved by a constituent assembly in 1946 which remained in force until 1967. Dutra's term came to an end in 1951. Meanwhile Vargas, who had sat out his exile at his ranch in Rio Grande do Sul, had prepared for the elections. Vargas had come to reap some of the rewards of his progressive measures in the fields of social welfare and trade union legislation. At the conclusion of Dutra's term, Vargas was constitutionally elected president of the republic. In 1954, in the middle of a bitter political crisis, Vargas put a pistol to his heart and pulled the trigger. A caretaker administration finished his term of office.
Brazil experienced five years of accelerated economic expansion under President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956- 1961), the founder of Brasília. He was followed by President Jânio Quadros, who resigned after less than a year in office. Quadros' vice president was João Goulart. Goulart was sworn in as president only after Congress hastily voted in a parliamentary system which drastically curtailed presidential powers. In a plebiscite held four months later, however, President Goulart was able to persuade the voters to restore the old presidential system. Rampant inflation and political polarization between left and right led to two and a half tumultuous years of political and social unrest and economic crisis. Fearing Goulart's Marxist leanings, the military overthrew him in a coup on March 31, 1964.
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