Marina Silva, Brazil’s third most popular candidate in the past three presidential elections, has announced her candidature for the country’s presidential elections due to take place in 2018.
Leader of the Sustainability Network party she created, Silva ran for the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) in the last elections after the electoral body rejected her candidacy because she hadn’t collected enough signatures.
The environmental activist, and former environment minister under Lula, criticized the current policies carried out by neoliberal President Michel Temer in a political meeting in Brazil.
“A government with 3 percent of approval cannot properly reform the country, also because the reforms the country needs are not the ones implemented,” she said.
In the 2010 presidential elections, Silva ran as a Green candidate after leaving the governing Workers’ Party. She had planned to reduce oil production in “pre-salt” areas,” under the seabed, replacing it instead with energy from ethanol as more a viable fossil-fuel alternative.
The evangelical member of the conservative Assembly of God also championed conservative positions on social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion.
In 2014, her anti-gay-marriage stance during the presidential campaign cost her the support of Mark Ruffalo, among others, after the U.S. actor had previously said he favored her as a candidate.
Lula stands a good chance of winning the presidency in 2018: despite the myriad problems plaguing the PT in recent months, the party remains the most popular. Recent local polls have also positioned Lula as the front-runner.
teleSUR