Editing Politics of Brazil (section)

===FHC government (1995–2003)===
{{Main|Presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso}}

In 1994, Cardoso with Ricupero, [[Ciro Gomes]] and others launched their [[Plano Real]], a successful economic reform that managed to permanently rid the country of the excessive inflation that had plagued it for more than forty years. The plan consisted of replacing the discredited old currency ([[Brazilian cruzeiro (1990–1993)|cruzeiro]] and [[Brazilian cruzeiro real|cruzeiro real]]) and pegging its value temporarily to the United States dollar. Inflation – which had become a fact of Brazilian life – was cut dramatically, a change that the Brazilians took years to get used to. Because of the success of Plano Real, Cardoso was chosen by his party to run for president and, with the strong support of Franco, eventually won, beating [[Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva]], who had emerged as the favorite only one year earlier.

Cardoso's term was marked by other major changes in Brazilian politics and economy. Public services and state-owned companies were [[privatization|privatized]] (some for values supposedly too cheap according to his adversaries), the strong [[Brazilian real|real]] made it easy to import goods, forcing Brazilian industry to modernize and compete (which had the side effect of causing many of them to be bought by foreign companies). During his first term, a constitutional amendment was passed to enable a sitting Executive chief to run for re-election, after which he again beat Lula in 1998.