Neves Calls on Rival Silva's Party to Ally for Brazil Run-Off
Brazilian presidential candidate Aecio Neves called on his rival Marina Silva's Socialist party to ally with his Social Democrats after defeating her Sunday to reach a run-off against incumbent Dilma Rousseff.
Neves, a center-right former governor, came back from a distant third place to eliminate Silva from the October 26 run-off, ending her once unstoppable-looking campaign to be the first black president of Brazil.
Both candidates had battled to carry the mantel of "change" that was the buzzword of the election after 12 years of Rousseff's Workers' Party, the last four marred by an economic slowdown, corruption allegations and widespread frustration with poor public services.
"I'm honored to represent the hope for change" in Brazil, Neves said after claiming 34 percent of the vote to Rousseff's 41 with nearly all the ballots counted.
He made an emotional appeal to Socialist supporters, whose electoral race was thrown into turmoil on August 13 when their original candidate, Eduardo Campos, was killed in a plane crash.
Silva, his running mate, took his place and initially leapt in the polls with her broad-based appeal, promising to be Brazil's first "poor, black" president.
But she lost steam in the last month of the campaign and finished on about 21 percent.
After paying homage to Campos, "a friend and honored public servant," Neves told Socialist supporters: "It's time to unite our forces."
"My candidacy is no longer the candidacy of a political party, or a group of alliances, it's a pure feeling among all Brazilians who still have the capacity to get angry and above all the capacity to dream. We're going to keep believing, as I always believed, that it's possible to give Brazil a government that unites decency and efficiency."
Source: Agence France Presse
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