BRAZIL’S left called for “vigilance” at the weekend after unelected President Michel Temer promised “extreme measures” including a new public security ministry, apparently in order to combat violent crime.

Mr Temer has placed the military in charge of security in Rio de Janeiro following a breakdown of law and order in the sprawling metropolis and surrounding state — and on Saturday he said he wanted a new ministry to “co-ordinate security operations” across the whole of Brazil, leading critics to fear a planned merger of police and army duties.

Gleisi Hoffman, president of the Workers Party whose former leader and Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was overthrown in a constitutional coup by Mr Temer in 2016, said the situation in Rio was “serious” but wondered whether the army’s beefed-up role would be “accompanied by the repression of social movements and the suspension of constitutional rights.”