(Bloomberg) -- A former Brazil central bank chief and close economic adviser to centrist Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin rejected reports that he may take a cabinet position in the incoming administration, according to Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.

Persio Arida, a liberal economist who joined the campaign of leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva along with Alckmin and is now part of the government transition team, told the newspaper he’s unwilling to take any government position in Brasilia, the country’s capital. That rules out all cabinet jobs.

Arida, 70, added he hasn’t been offered any position in the new government. He was quoted by the newspaper as describing reports that he had become a strong contender to head the finance or planning ministries as “fantasy.” 

After helping design the so-called Real Plan that stabilized Brazil’s economy in the 1990s, he became the president of the country’s central bank in 1995, and later headed investment bank Banco BTG Pactual SA.

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Folha was among the media outlets that have reported that members of Lula’s Workers’ Party were considering appointing Arida and former Sao Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad for key economic positions such as the ministries of finance and planning.  Such a combination would follow the same logic adopted by Lula when picking a mix of liberal and more left-leaning economists to form his transition team.

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