Brazil Socialists name presidential candidate after Campos death

  Brazil's Socialist party named popular environmentalist Marina Silva as presidential candidate Wednesday, replacing her late running mate Eduardo Campos after his plane crash death last week, AFP reports.

Campos's death has radically shaken the electoral landscape ahead of the October vote, possibly setting up his former vice presidential candidate Silva to unseat incumbent Dilma Rousseff in a runoff, according to the latest poll.

"I will give the best I have in me," said Silva, a 56-year-old former environment minister, after the announcement.

"Our proposals (call) for a more just, economically prosperous and socially fair, politically democratic and environmentally sustainable Brazil."

PSB president Roberto Amaral said party leaders had chosen Silva unanimously to replace her late running mate at the top of the ticket.

"We had the immense luck to have her as a substitute," he told a press conference.

Socialist lawmaker Beto Albuquerque was named the party's new vice presidential candidate.

On Monday, polling firm Datafolha put Silva in second place ahead of the October 5 first-round vote, with 21 percent support against 36 percent for Rousseff and 20 percent for Social Democrat Aecio Neves.

And, in a radical shakeup of the electoral landscape, it found she would beat Rousseff in an October 26 runoff, 47 percent to 43 percent.

Before Campos's death, the election outlook had been stable for months, with Rousseff polling about 36 percent, Neves 20 percent and Campos eight percent.