Brazilian election prognosis upended as plane crash kills presidential candidate Eduardo Campos and boosts Marina Silva.
| Autor | Scruggs, Gregory |
An airplane carrying Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB) candidate Eduardo Campos crashed in Santos, Sao Paulo, on Aug. 13. The plane went down in bad weather although the exact cause remains undetermined. However, there is at present no suspicion of foul play. Campos was on his way to a campaign stop along with three political advisers, a photographer, and two pilots. All seven aboard were killed.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the PSB agreed to nominate Campos' running mate, Marina Silva, as his replacement on the ballot. Silva previously ran for president in 2010 and came in third. She had intended to run again in 2014, but her political party was not successfully registered with the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) in time for this year's October general elections.
Prior to his death, Campos was trailing the incumbent, President Dilma Rousseff (Partido de Trabalhadores, PT), and conservative challenger Aecio Neves (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, PSDB). As a former minister in the PT government of Rousseff's predecessor, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), Campos had struggled to gain adherents following his rupture with the party and declaration of his candidacy. Silva, by contrast, draws significant support from the left as a former Partido Verde (PV) candidate and has skyrocketed in recent polls. On Aug. 29, she polled even with Rousseff at 34%, while Neves' consistent 20% has since dropped to 15%, according to combined results from Datafolha, TV Globo, and the Folha de Sao Paulo.
Campos and Silva formed uneasy alliance that struggled to take off
The political expediency that resulted in a Campos/Silva ticket began with the disillusion of both politicians toward their former patron, the PT. Campos served as minister of science and technology under Lula from 2004-2005 when the PSB was allied with the PT. He maintained a close relationship with Lula after leaving the federal government and assuming the presidency of the PSB, which continued to hold several ministries in the second Lula and first Rousseff administrations. However, Campos, later a successful and popular governor of the northeastern state of Pernambuco from 2007-2014, did not maintain as close and cordial of a relationship with Rousseff. She ultimately demanded that all PSB ministers resign in September 2013 when Campos and his party refused to pledge allegiance to Rousseff's re-election campaign. With the PSB-PT alliance officially broken, Campos...
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu pruebaCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
