BRASILIA: Brazil's Socialist party named popular environmentalist Marina Silva its presidential candidate Wednesday, reshaping the political landscape after her late running mate Eduardo Campos died in a plane crash last week.
Campos's death has radically transformed the outlook for the October vote, possibly setting up Silva, his former vice presidential candidate, to unseat incumbent Dilma Rousseff in a runoff, according to the latest poll.
"I will give the best I have in me," said Silva, a 56-year-old former environment minister, after the announcement.
"Our proposals seek a more just, economically prosperous and socially fair, politically democratic and environmentally sustainable Brazil," added Silva, whose life story is one of astounding personal mobility.
Born into a poor family of rubber tappers in the Amazon, she only learned to read and write at 16 years old, the start of a meteoric rise to become a figurehead of the country's environmental movement.
PSB president Roberto Amaral said party leaders had chosen Silva unanimously to replace Campos at the top of the ticket.
"We had the immense luck to have her as a substitute," he told a press conference.
Socialist lawmaker Beto Albuquerque was named the party's new vice presidential candidate.
The PSB had been widely expected to name Silva as its new candidate after Campos, a 49-year-old former governor, was killed when his campaign jet crashed en route to Sao Paulo.
Before Campos's death, the election outlook had been stable for months, with Rousseff polling about 36 percent, Neves 20 percent and Campos eight percent.
But Silva's entry into the race could prove a real threat for Rousseff, who is seeking a second four-year term.
On Monday, polling firm Datafolha put Silva in second place ahead of the October 5 first-round vote, with 21 percent support against 36 percent for Rousseff and 20 percent for Social Democrat Aecio Neves.
And it found she would beat Rousseff in an October 26 runoff, 47 percent to 43 percent.
The poll was the first taken since Campos's death in the August 13 plane crash.
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