Tancredo Neves was first civilian President elected after 21 years of military rule in Brazil, died in March 1985 before taking office.
Background
Tancredo Neves was bom in Sao Joao del Rey, Minas Gerais, he belonged to a traditional but not wealthy family of the area on 4 March 1910.
Education
Graduated from law school in 1933.
Career
He participated in the political campaign of 1930, supporting the Liberal Alliance and Getulio Vargas. He was a founder of the Progressive Party of Minas Gerais. Elected in 1935 to the city council of Sao Joao del Rey, he lost his seat when Vargas shut down Brazil’s political system in 1937 with establishment of the fascist-modeled Estado Novo.
Neves won election to state assemblyman in January 1947 after the Vargas dictatorship had fallen. In 1950 he was elected a Social Democratic Party (PSD) congressman and became leader of the PSD Minas Gerais delegation. Vargas named him minister of justice in 1953, and he served until Vargas committed suicide in August 1954.
Returning to Congress, Neves became the leading spokesman for Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira’s drive for the presidency. In 1955 Neves became director of the Banco de Credito Real de Minas Gerais, and a year later a director of the Bank of Brazil. In 1958 he became secretary of finances of Minas Gerais. In I960 he suffered his one political defeat, when he ran unsuccessfully for governor of Minas Gerais.
After the August 1961 resignation of President Janio Quadros, the Brazilian Army split on whether to permit Vice President Joao Belchior Marques Goulart to assume the presidency. Tancredo Neves helped work out a compromise of a parliamentary system, and traveled to Montevideo to convince the vice president to accept it. When Goulart was inaugurated on September 7, 1961, Neves became the first prime minister. In June 1962 Neves and the cabinet resigned so that they would not be disqualified from running in the October 1962 election.
Tancredo Neves returned as congressman from Minas Gerais and became majority leader of the Chamber of Deputies. When in March 1964 the military overthrew Goulart, Neves resigned as majority leader but remained as a deputy.
The decree law of 1965 which dissolved all existing parties resulted in Neves joining the newly created opposition Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), whereas most of his former PSD colleagues entered the pro-government party. He was elected to three successive terms in Congress. Throughout this period, he maintained opposition to the military government. In 1978 he was elected senator from Minas Gerais and in 1982 was overwhelmingly elected governor.
When the military decided to permit free elections in the 1984 presidential race, Tancredo Neves became the opposition nominee. Massive desertions from the government party gave Neves and the PMDE (Partido Movimiento Democratico Brasileiro) party a victory in the January 1985 electoral college. Before he could take the oath of office on March 15, however, Neves became seriously ill. He died from a series of surgical operations, and Vice President Jose Sarney became president of Brazil.