Brazil leader’s ally may field own presidential candidate
Jul 15, 2015, 3:30 PM
SAO PAULO (AP) — The main party in the governing coalition led by President Dilma Rousseff’s left-wing Workers’ Party said Wednesday that it’s planning to field its own candidate in Brazil’s 2018 presidential election.
Rousseff’s vice president, Michel Temer, told reporters that his Brazilian Democratic Movement Party is “open to new alliances with all political parties” and favors having its own candidate in the contest.
If it fields its own candidate, the Democratic Movement will be abandoning its alliance with the Workers’ Party that began during the government of Rousseff’s predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In recent months, Democratic Movement leaders and members of Congress have publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with Rousseff’s administration, which has been buffeted by a weakened economy and corruption scandals.
Standing alongside Temer were fellow party members Renan Calheiros, president of the Senate, and Eduardo Cunha, president of the Chamber of Deputies.
Cunha said the party “wants to find its own way without this alliance.”
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