Marina Silva backs Campos for Brazil presidency

Brasilia, Oct 6 (IANS/EFE) Ecologist Marina Silva said Saturday that she will not run for the Brazilian presidency in the 2014 polls, and instead will back Eduardo Campos, who will be the nominee for the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB).

"I come to a party with a candidate," Silva said as she joined the PSB at a ceremony in Brasilia, standing next to Campos, governor of the northeastern state of Pernambuco.

Silva decided to join the PSB after the electoral court refused to register her own party, called Sustainability Network, since it had not collected the minimum number of signatures required by law.

The ecologist said that Sustainability Network has not yet decided whether she should run for vice president on the ticket with Campos.

The electoral accord does not signify a fusion of the two parties, according to Silva, who said she remains a "militant of Sustainability Network" and joined the PSB in a "transitory" and "symbolic" way until she can establish her own party.

"We're the first clandestine party ever created in a functioning democracy," Silva said in her speech, during which she slammed the electoral court for not accepting the creation of her party.

"I perfectly understand that we are receiving Sustainability Network into the PSB to establish a programmatic alliance. We acknowledge it as something necessary to improve politics in Brazil," Campos said.

Campos praised Silva's "courage" for taking a decision "that is not the most convenient for her" but "is the one that contributes most to changing Brazil."

The latest polls place Silva in second place with a view to the elections, to be held in exactly one year, with between 16 percent and 26 percent of voter preference.

Campos comes in fourth in the surveys, with close to 5 percent of voter preference, while President Dilma Rousseff remains the favourite with close to 38 percent.

--IANS/EFE

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