José Sarney

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José Ribamar Ferreira de Araújo Costa, (pron. ), (born April 24, 1930, in Pinheiro, Maranhão) is a Brazilian writer and politician. He served as president of Brazil from March 15, 1985 to March 15, 1990.

He was the son of Sarney de Araújo Costa and Kiola Ferreira de Araújo Costa. In 1965 he legally adopted the name José Sarney de Araújo Costa, usually shortened to José Sarney (pron. ), for electoral purposes, since he was known as "Zé do Sarney", as in "José, son of Sarney". His father was named Sarney because he was born on property owned by Sir Ney, an Englishman for whom his father (José Sarney's grandfather) worked.

Political biography

After the military coup that overthrew President João Goulart in 1964, Sarney was a member of the ARENA, the political party of the military government and was elected as governor of the state of Maranhão in 1966, serving until 1971. In 1979 ARENA changed its name to PDS at which time Sarney became president of the party. In 1984, the military rule was under pressure due to popular protests to reinstall direct elections for president (Diretas Já movement). PDS was divided, but launched Paulo Maluf as its candidate for the presidency in indirect elections. Sarney disagreed with this decision and left PDS and to join the opposition. Due to the complex transition to democracy in Brazil, Sarney became the vice-president of Tancredo Neves, in the opposition ticket. Neves won the election of January 15, 1985, but on the eve of taking the oath he became severely ill. Sarney assumed office as acting president until Neves died on April 21, then he formally became the first civilian president in 21 years.

He had to face a lot of problems, like the enormous foreign debt, rampant inflation, corruption and to complete the transition to democracy. Sarney launched an economic plan to stabilize the economy, called "Plano Cruzado", successful at first, but the inflation became stronger than ever after a year. A new and democratic constitution was promulgated in 1988, and in the following year the first direct elections since 1960 were held.

Sarney left the Presidency at the end of his term. He supported Fernando Henrique Cardoso as presidential candidate in 1994 and 1998, and, surprisingly, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in 2002. Since he left the Presidency, he's been a senator, being the head of the Brazilian Senate from 2003 to 2005.

As a writer, his best known novel is Os Marimbondos de Fogo. With this novel, he got the chance to become one of the Academia Brasileira de Letras members.

José Sarney

Political biography

See also