Brazil’s presidential race is in stunned disarray after one of the top three contenders was killed on the campaign trail when a small plane carrying him and his aides crashed into a residential area in this port city.
Socialist politician Eduardo Campos and the six other people aboard the aircraft died in the accident on Wednesday, which came less than two months before the Oct. 4 presidential election.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who opinion polls say leads the race, declared three days of official mourning for Campos and said she was suspending her campaign during that time. The other main candidate, Aecio Neves, also said he was putting his campaign on hold.
Photo: Reuters
“Brazil is in mourning and reeling from a death that took the life of a promising young politician,” Rousseff said. She said Campos had had “an extremely promising future.”
The 49-year-old from a powerful political family from the northeastern state of Pernambuco, Campos had been a fixture on the Brazilian political scene since his youth, having served as state and federal representative and also as Pernambuco’s governor. He had been allied with Rousseff and her Workers Party, but broke away before the presidential campaign. Opinion polls had said Campos was running in third place, behind Rousseff and Neves.
Campos was married to his high-school sweetheart and the two had five children.
The candidate, four members of his campaign staff and two pilots were traveling from Rio de Janeiro to the city of Guaruja when the Cessna 560XL went down in nearby Santos at about 10am.
Aeronautical officials said the plane was trying to land in bad weather, although the Globo television network broadcast interviews with witnesses who said the aircraft was in flames before it crashed among apartment buildings. An investigation has been opened to determine the exact cause, Brazil’s aeronautical agency said.
Daniel Onias, a civil defense officer on the scene, said the victims’ bodies were “disintegrated.” Five people on the ground at the time of the crash were slightly injured, he said.
The accident sent shock waves through Brazil’s political class and had pundits speculating about how it might affect the election.
Campos’ running mate, former minister of the environment Marina Silva, is widely seen as one of Brazil’s most popular politicians and a potential political threat to Rousseff. Brazilian law gives parties 10 days to choose a substitute in the case of a candidate’s death and it was thought likely that the Brazilian Socialist Party would choose Silva to step in for Campos.
Silva herself did not give any hints about her political future. In a brief statement to reporters in Santos, a shaken Silva spoke solely about Campos and her relationship with him. Silva, who got 20 percent of the vote in the 2010 presidential election, joined Campos’ ticket last October after she was unable to set up her own party in time to run against for president.
“During these 10 months of partnership, I learned to respect him, admire him and feel confidence in his attitudes and his ideals in life,” she said in a soft, wavering voice. “This is, without a shadow of a doubt, a tragedy which plunges us into a profound sadness that I know that every single Brazilian is sharing with each and every one of us.”
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