The Socialist candidate to the Presidency in Brazil, Eduardo Campos, died this morning aged 49 in a crash of his private jet in Santos (45 miles from Sao Paulo). The plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro with 7 people on board and crashed in the eastern part of the city of Santos.
Marina Silva, his vice-candidate, chose at the last moment not to fly with Campos this morning and took another plane. She is confirmed to be safe in Sao Paulo.
Up to now, Eduardo Campos was placed third in the polls, behind current President Dilma Rousseff from the Workers Party (PT) and Aécio Neves from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB).
The campaign for the election, which is to take place on 5 October 2014, will now be put on stand-by by the other candidates. Neves already announced the cancellation of a party meeting he was supposed to attend later today.
The presidential election.
The campaign for the election, which is to take place on 5 October 2014, will now be put on stand-by by the other candidates. Neves already announced the cancellation of a party meeting he was supposed to attend later today.
The election comes after the FIFA World Cup, which was hosted by Brazil this year, that many people in Brazil regarded as a total waste of money and not an event Brazil should have been offered to organise in the first place. Voices against the World Cup were mostly concerned by the money spent in the building of new football stadiums or the renovation of current stadiums, whilst the same money could have been spent for health and education instead.
A gap appeared already a year ago, during the hosting of the prelude to the World Cup, the Confederation Cup, when tens of thousands of Brazilians protested in the streets for the very same reason.
Many observers think the current President, Dilma Rousseff, would suffer from the hosting of the football event in the running for her reelection. Can the death of one of her fiercest opponents could lead to an easier win? To be continued…
(Photograph: Wilson Dias/ABr – Agência Brasil)