Zeyney Zileli Rabanea – Aljazeera, 09/23/2014
Brazilian presidential candidate Marina Silva’s success story is almost too good to be true for the media. She was born into a poor, mixed race family in the Amazon – one of 11 children. She learned to read at the age of 16 and was the first member of her family to become literate. Living in poverty, she contracted malaria and hepatitis but overcame both.
Silva entered politics by being elected to the Brazilian Senate in 1994. In this initial phase of her career, she established a strong environmentalist position. While serving as minister of environment during Lula da Silva’s presidency she was criticised for slowing down the country’s agricultural growth by her actions to protect the forest resources of the Amazon.
Yet in 2014, no one expected Silva to be so highly regarded as to be put forward as a presidential candidate running against the incumbent Dilma Rousseff. To the surprise of many, her chances of winning are looking good with her popularity rising in polls against Rousseff’s Workers’ Party. Silva entered the race when the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, Eduardo Campos, was killed in a plane crash and Silva, his running mate, was selected to seek the presidency.
Brazil Portal 