Brazil is on the verge of electing their Barack Obama. Except Marina Silva would not only be the country’s first black president – but also the world’s first green president. Silva was born into a poor Amazon family of mixed race ancestry — indigenous, African and Portuguese. She rose the political ranks to become Brazil’s environmental minister, and an unexpected turn of events has catapulted her to the front in the race against incumbent Dilma Rousseff.

 

Silva was the vice presidential candidate for the October election when her running mate Eduardo Campos was killed in a plane crash and she was selected to run as the Brazilian Socialist party’s presidential nominee. She also belongs to the Sustainability Network party and plans to make sustainable development a priority if elected to lead the South American nation of nearly 203 million people. Her platform calls for greater energy diversity, including more wind, solar and ethanol. She has also called for protecting the Amazon from deforestation.

 

“Sustainable development is a global trend that can be seen in China, India and elsewhere. If I win, of course I want to make Brazil a symbol of that trend. It won’t just be us, but we have enormous potential,” Silva said.

 

“If elected, Marina will be the greenest president in history, the first black president in Brazil and the first to be born in the Amazon,” journalist Altino Machado told The Guardian. “She has proved her credentials as an environmentalist and protector of the Amazon. She also has a very strong ethical code and is totally free from any taint of corruption, which is extremely rare in politics in Brazil, where scandals happen all the time.