Eduardo Campos in Rio de Janeiro in this April 5, 2013 file photo. Photograph: Globo/GDA/Zuma Press
Campos died after a Cessna 560XL built to hold nine passengers crashed at about 10 a.m. following an aborted landing because of bad weather, the air force said in statement. The plane crashed on a gym, according to a spokesman for the fire department.
“All of Brazil is in mourning,” President Dilma Rousseff said in an e-mailed statement. “Today we lost a great Brazilian.” Rousseff declared three days of mourning and suspended her campaign during that period.
The death of Campos upends the presidential election just 53 days before Brazilians go to the ballot boxes. Polling third in the race against Rousseff and Senator Aecio Neves, Campos and his running mate Marina Silva were garnering enough support to limit the incumbent’s chance of a first round victory.
A science and technology minister under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Campos had 9 percent support in an Ibope poll published Aug. 7. Rousseff had 38 percent and Neves 23 percent. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
“The natural thing would be for Marina to
replace him on the ballot sheet,” said Andre Cesar, director at public policy and business strategy consulting firm Prospectiva. “The tragedy may boost Marina’s candidacy. A second round is more probable.”
Eduardo Campos, presidential candidate and former governor of the state of Pernambuco,... Read More
Street Protests
Campos quit Rousseff’s ruling coalition last year in the aftermath of street protests against inflation, World Cup spending and corruption that pulled the government’s popularity to record low.“It’s an enormous loss,” Jorge Gerdau, chairman of Gerdau SA, Latin America’s biggest steelmaker, told reporters with tears in his eyes. “He was a young, competent leader.”
Campos vowed to tackle inequality in the world’s second biggest emerging market, saying in a May interview on TV Cultura that Brazil’s current tax structure was regressive.
“A transition is required to have a tax system based on another structure so it becomes less regressive,” Campos said at the time. “This can’t be done overnight. This can’t be done without considering the political, economic environment we live in.”
Political Debut
Campos in April picked Silva as his vice presidential running mate. She placed third in the 2010 presidential race.Campos made his debut in politics at age 21, when he campaigned for Miguel Arraes, his grandfather and former Pernambuco governor. As a legislator in Congress he successfully pushed a bill that cut pension benefits and, as President Lula’s science minister, a measure that allowed stem cell research.
Crash victims are being taken to Santa Casa de Santos Hospital in Santos, a hospital spokeswoman said by telephone. Five bodies have been taken to the institution, and officials are awaiting more victims. The spokeswoman was not able to comment on the identities.
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