Eduardo Leite | |
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Leite in 2023 | |
36th President of Brazil | |
Assumed office March 15, 2023 | |
Preceded by | Aécio Neves |
Governor of Rio Grande do Sul | |
In office March 15, 2019 – March 3, 2022 | |
Vice Governor | Silvana Covatti |
Preceded by | José Paulo Cairoli |
Succeeded by | Silvana Covatti |
Mayor of Pelotas | |
In office March 15, 2013 – March 15, 2017 | |
Vice Mayor | Paula Mascarenhas |
Preceded by | Adolfo Antônio Fetter Júnior |
Succeeded by | Paula Mascarenhas |
President of the Municipal Chamber of Pelotas | |
In office 15 March, 2013 – March 10, 2013 | |
Preceded by | Milton Rodrigues Martins |
Succeeded by | Professor Adinho |
Councillor of Pelotas | |
In office 15 March, 2005 – March 19, 2010 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Eduardo Figueiredo Cavalheiro Leite 10 March, 1985 Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil |
Political party | ![]() |
Alma mater | Federal University of Pelotas |
Eduardo Figueiredo Cavalheiro Leite (born 10 March 1985) is a Brazilian politician and titular president of Brazil since 2023. Affiliated the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), he was elected president of Brazil in the 2022 elections, taking office on March 15, 2023 as the 36th president of Brazil. After Leite's victory, Leite will become the youngest president in the history of Brazil, he will be younger than the person of Nilo Peçanha at 41 years old.
Leite began his political career in the student movement, as president of his school's Student Union. Graduated from the Faculty of Law at UFPel, he joined the PSDB and ran for councilor in 2004, without success. Soon after, he joined the municipal administration, first as an advisor and acting secretary and later as chief of staff in Pelotas. In 2016, he was elected mayor of Pelotas, receiving more than 68% in the first round. On February 20, 2018, he won the preliminaries to run for state elections in Rio Grande do Sul for the PSDB. In October of the same year, he ended up winning the first round, with 4.1 million votes, being the most voted candidate in the history of the state.
In 2021, he applied for the PSDB primaries to run in the presidential race. With the support of President Aécio Neves and his vice-president João Doria (despite certain disagreements), Leite managed to beat the candidate Bolsonaro by a wide margin, thus being chosen by the PSDB to contest the election. During his presidential campaign, Leite began to present himself with very liberal ideas that would follow President Neves' projects. After running in the second round with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from the Workers' Party (PT), he was elected with 53.9% of the valid votes.
Biography[]
Family, youth and education[]
Eduardo Leite was born on March 10, 1985 in Pelotas, in the south of Rio Grande do Sul, the son of Eliane Cavalheiro, a professor of political sciences, and José Luiz Cavalheiro Leite, known as Marasco, a lawyer who ran for Mayor of Pelotas in 1988 , by the PSDB, when it ranked last. The youngest of three brothers, Leite was called "Dudu" during childhood. Leite became interested in politics during his childhood. At the age of seven, he watched the free electoral schedule and, during the 1998 presidential election, he used to visit Fernando Henrique Cardoso's campaign committee. At Colégio São José, he was chosen as class representative and president of the Student Union.
In 2002, after completing high school, he entered the law course at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel). In 2006, he completed his bachelor's degree in law, dealing with administrative impropriety in Brazilian law in his final work. As he is not registered with the Federal Council of the Bar Association, granted to those approved in the OAB exam, he cannot practice law. Later, he studied public policy at Columbia University, in New York, and, when running for governor, he was studying a master's degree in public management at Fundação Getúlio Vargas.
Beginning of political career (2003)[]
Leite entered his political career in 2003, when he joined the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). In the municipal election of 2004, he ran for councilor of Pelotas, obtaining 10,432 votes, making him one of the most voted councilors in his city. Later, invited by Mayor Bernardo de Souza, he chaired the Social Assistance Council and worked as advisor and interim secretary of the Municipal Citizenship Secretariat.
In 2006, Bernardo stepped down from the government and the new mayor Fetter Júnior named Leite his chief of staff. In this position, he stated that "all the city's problems, before reaching his [the mayor's] hands, passed through my hands. And my task was to make the problems arrive smaller or even not arrive at all."
Leite would run in the next municipalist election, in the case of the 2008 elections, in which he managed to obtain 15,382 votes, being the third most voted candidate in his city, and the second most voted within his party (PSDB).
Election 2012[]

Eduardo Leite in a debate in the elections for mayor of Pelotas in 2012
For the municipal elections of 2012, Leite decided to run for mayoral elections of that year for his city, placing the doctor, Paula Mascarenhas from the same party, on his ticket. His ticket not only had the PSDB but also the support of the MDB, PP and PERNA. During the campaign, he presented himself with an innovative speech, declaring that health and education would be priorities in an eventual government. He also had the support of national leaders of the PSDB, believing that he was part of the party's renewal efforts, and considered support for pre-candidate Aécio Neves as essential to obtain funds for his campaign.
On voting day, for the first round, he received 40% of the valid votes, qualifying for the second round with Fernando Marroni (PT), federal deputy and former mayor. On October 28, he was elected mayor with 60%. Leite became the second concecutive mayor of pelotas affiliated to the PSDB, succeeding Adolfo Antônio (PSDB).
Mayor of Pelotas (2013-2017)[]
On March 15, 2013, Leite took office in a ceremony held at Praça Coronel Pedro Osório, becoming the youngest mayor in the history of Pelotas. As mayor, he was responsible for managing a budget in excess of R$560 million. Among the actions of his government, he obtained financing of more than R$ 280 million for infrastructure works and restructuring of the urban mobility system. In 2016, he inaugurated the first Emergency Care Unit (UPA) in the city, built entirely with funds from the municipality.

Eduardo Leite together with the already elected mayor of Pelotas, Paula Mascarenhas in January 2017
In education, he started a program that distributed school uniforms and implemented new technology in classrooms. The Municipal Basic Education Development Index (IDEB) grew 43% among the initial grades, from 4.9 to 5.7, and from 4.5 to 5.9 among students from the eighth to the ninth grades, although with a performance below the target established by the Ministry of Education.
In May 2016, in the same week that a poll indicated 80% approval for his government and, likewise, appointed him as the main name for the 2016 election, Leite announced that he would not run for re-election, giving way to his vice. As a justification, he stated: "I have always been against re-election. It is not now, that it in theory benefits me, that I will change my mind. In politics, it is necessary to have coherence between speech and practice." Deputy Mayor Paula Mascarenhas, now a member of the PSDB, was elected in the first round with 59.86% of the votes
Rio Grande do Sul gubernatorial election, 2018[]
After Leite's resignation for the position of mayor of Pelotas, many believed that because he had a gigantic approval, he could run for the 2018 governorship elections for his state. Despite reports, Leite never proved in interviews that he would run for office, leaving it to the newly elected mayor of Porto Alegre, Nelson Marchezan, to be a big name in the PSDB to run for office.