(Efe, 21.Sep.2018) — Environmentalist Marina Silva said on Friday that if elected next month as Brazil’s president, she will create 2 million jobs through programs to promote use of renewable energy.
Silva, who finished third in the 2014 and 2010 contests, is currently at 7 percent in the polls ahead of the Oct. 7 election.
“We will work to fulfill the Paris Agreement (on climate change) and for that, we will launch some programs, such as Sun for Everybody” to reduce CO2 emissions, she told a gathering of environmentalists in Sao Paulo.
A day after appearing in a televised debate, Silva denounced “populisms of left and right” and renewed her plea for an end to the “old polarization” of Brazil amid the country’s most unpredictable electoral campaign in recent decades.
Polls show far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in the lead with 28 percent, followed at 19 percent by Workers Party nominee Fernando Haddad, a stand-in for jailed former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was barred from running.
Marina Silva is in fifth place, trailing center-left hopeful Ciro Gomes (13 percent) and conservative Geraldo Alckmin (9 percent), but says that she won’t quit the race despite the discouraging outlook.
“If Gandhi had stopped believing India could be free, it would still be a colony today. If (Martin) Luther King had declined to fight racial discrimination in the United States, we would never have had Obama,” she said.
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