Fernando Damata Pimentel

Fernando Damata Pimentel (born 31 March 1951) is a Brazilian politician and economist. He is a member of the Workers' Party (PT). He was the Mayor of Belo Horizonte from 2001 to 2009, the Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade in the Cabinet of former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff from 2011 to 2014 and the Governor of Minas Gerais from 2015 to 2019.

Ministry of Development From 2011-2014 he was the minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade during the Presidency of Dilma Rousseff of whom he had been a close friend since their time as students.

He was accused and condemned for influence peddling and money laundering to 10 years and 6 months. but succeeded to be innocented in 2022 in the revision process for insufficient proves.

Governor of Minas Gerais In 2014, he announced his departure from the Ministry of Development to run for governor of Minas Gerais for the Workers' Party (PT). On October 5, he was elected governor of Minas Gerais in the first round, with 52.98% of the valid votes, defeating candidate Pimenta da Veiga, from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). He took office on January 1, 2015.

Reelection 2018 Pimental was a candidate for his own succession in 2018, but only came in 3rd place with 23.12% of the votes behind Romeu Zema (NOVO) and Antonio Anastasia (PMDB) and was eliminated.

His government was overshadowed by a hole in public finances of Minas Gerais, that was estimated at R$30–99.5 billion at the end of his term. During his governement the state of Minas Gerais had to declare the state of public calamity for Minas Gerais to be able to pay the salaries of the public serveants. and a conviction for corruption, influence peddling and money laundering during his time as Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade during the term of Dilma Rousseff in 2019

Life

Fernando Pimentel studied Economy at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. He is a member of the PT, a party he helped to create.

He has been married twice and has two adopted children.

Academic career He has held a teaching position and engaged in scholarly activity as coordinator of the Extension Center of the Faculty of Economic Sciences, UFMG. Since August 1978, he has been an assistant professor in their Department of Economics. He is also an active member of the professional categories of entities, has held the vice-presidency of the Association of University Teachers of Belo Horizonte (1985–1987) and he was president of the Regional Economy of Minas Gerais (1991–1992), having been reelected twice; Furthermore, he was a counselor of the same for an overlapping time, between 1990 and 1992. He was also director of the Union of Economists of Minas Gerais (1986–1992).