BRASILIA (Reuters) – The Brazilian Socialist Party plans to launch environmentalist Marina Silva as its presidential candidate next week, replacing party leader Eduardo Campos who was killed in a plane clash, a senior party official said yesterday.
The PSB, as the party is known, has agreed to rally around a Silva candidacy after she pledged to honor the party’s programme and its regional alliances, said Beto Albuquerque, a party congressman from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.
“She will be the PSB candidate and she will honor those agreements,” Albuquerque told Reuters. “Marina already signaled she will take over the candidacy.”
Silva’s candidacy, along with the name of her running mate, is expected to be announced after a party meeting scheduled for Aug. 20, he said.
Concern among some prominent PSB members about Silva’s conservationist views and other issues such as economic policy were the main obstacles to her nomination.
Albuquerque, himself a favourite to become Silva’s running mate, said the vice presidential candidate should be a person from the PSB who defends Campos’ legacy, while being close to Silva.
Earlier yesterday, three leading Brazilian newspapers reported that the PSB is likely to announce Silva, who was Campos’ running mate, as its presidential candidate next week.
On Friday, a key PSB coalition ally told Reuters that consensus was building around a Silva candidacy but that many issues still had to be ironed out before a final decision could be made.
“There appears to be consensus in the party that Marina should take Eduardo’s place,” Roberto Freire, leader of the Popular Socialist Party, told Reuters.
Campos, a popular former governor of Pernambuco state, was killed in a plane crash on Wednesday on the way to a campaign event in the southeastern coastal city of Santos.
