, 1984 On 15 March 1983, the elected governors took office, and debates around President João Figueiredo's succession began. During his address at the end of 1982, the President abdicated from coordinating debates around his succession, and put the issue in the hands of his party, the PDS. The lack of a consensus by the PDS in appointing a name denoted cracks in the governmental college. The college later appointed Mário Andreazza as
Minister of Internal Affairs,
Marco Maciel as
senator, and
Paulo Maluf as congressman, whom all brought a significant part of the PDS with them. Vice-president
Aureliano Chaves immediately started having conflicts with President Figueiredo, and that only complicated the process of succession. Talks towards Neves's candidacy as president began in 1983 when he received a visit led by
José Fragelli who brought 15 senators from the PMDB with him. The group proposed his candidacy as president in the elections that were set by the Electoral College and scheduled for 15 January 1985. In the beginning of that year, Fragelli organized a group of 14 senators, all of whom were willing to work for the presidential campaign, to visit Governor Neves. It was Senator Fragelli himself, who after this meeting told Senator Pedro Simon that if the PMDB decided to be part of the Electoral College, their candidate would then be Neves. Other segments of the military regime opposition acted differently, and included the re-institution of direct presidential elections in their agenda. The opposition's first action took place in the county of
Pernambuco, led by Mozart de Abreu e Lima, on the same day that the Military Regime completed its 19th year, 31 March 1983. The manifestations that occurred in the
Northeast of Brazil resulted from a manifesto by the ten opposition governors (nine from the PMDB and one from the PDT), which demanded the re-establishment of direct presidential elections. The very next day, a commission supporting the was formed in the capital of
São Paulo and gathered ten thousand people. They were frustrated with the rejection of the constitutional amendment from 25 April 1984, called Dantes de Oliveira. Many other commissions were formed between January and April 1984 and were given the name "Direct Now Campaign". In April 1984, Neves gathered with more than 1,500,000 people in the Vale do Anhangabaú in support of the movement. Neves was the first one to give a speech and received a massive applause when he said: "The time has come for us to free our nation from this confusion that has overtaken the country in the past twenty years". He then continued to defend the approval of Congress’s amendment, stating that "those members of the parliament who voted against the amendment would have to leave Congress since they no longer represented the people's interests". Senator
José Sarney, President of the PDS, was very aware of the risks surrounding such a large fragmentation inside his party, so he proposed to his affiliates, the realization of a pre-election that would determine the candidate to the presidency. His proposal was quickly repelled by the "malufistas" who interpreted it as a way to derail the leader's candidacy. This fact led Sarney to leave the PDS presidency and to abandon his party a few days afterwards. He was later followed by
Jorge Bornhausen, who also left the party. Governors from the PMDB and
Leonel Brizola from the
Democratic Labour Party (Brazil) PDT announced their support of Neves as a candidate from the opposition in the elections of the Electoral College (that was composed of the National Congress and representatives from the
Legislative Assemblies). In contrast,
Aureliano Chaves and
Marco Maciel were removed from the dispute, which left
Paulo Maluf and Mário Andreazza as candidates. However, Maluf's victory led his opponents to support Neves. After an agreement was made between the PMDB and a dissident movement from the PDS called Liberal Front, it was established that Neves would be the candidate for president, and that José Sarney (former ARENA member and who had left the PDS to join the PMDB) would be the candidate for vice-president. The Liberal Front emerged in 1984 from a divergence in the PMDB, party which later became the Liberal Front Party, today's Democrats. This dissident movement was ignited in the PDS when Paulo Maluf, former governor of São Paulo, won the internal dispute inside the PDS against Minister of Home Affairs, Mário Andreazza. Maluf was then chosen by the PDS to be their candidate for President against Neves, in the
Electoral college on 15 January 1985. Neves secretly wanted businessman
Antônio Ermírio de Moraes to be vice-president. Ermírio de Moraes, born in a traditional family from
Pernambuco, was business leader in
São Paulo. His father, José Ermírio de Moraes had been senator through the
Brazilian Labour Party (PTB) in Pernambuco and was a friend of Getúlio Vargas. His secret was revealed and the possibility of Antônio becoming vice-president was discarded in São Paulo. The PMDB had minority seats in the
Electoral college, and for that reason, it needed to gain votes from the PDS to be able to elect a president. At that time, the candidates for president and vice-president had to be from the same party, and party coalitions where not allowed. Sarney was able to affiliate himself to the PMDB because he had been senator through the
National Renewal Alliance Party (ARENA) in 1978, party which had been extinct since then. Therefore, his change in parties was not considered by the existing electoral rules, as an infidelity worthy of losing a mandate, since Sarney was not leaving a party by which he had been elected. This was not the case with Marco Maciel, who could not change parties since he had been elected senator in Pernambuco through the PDS in 1982. Aureliano Chaves could not be a candidate for president through the PMDB, even though he had been elected vice-president through the ARENA in 1978, since he had been the President as a substitute for João Figueiredo, becoming therefore, ineligible for president. Aureliano was also ineligible for vice-president because at the time, re-election was not allowed. Neves was cast as candidate for having approval by the military and for being considered a moderate. In the military arena, the support that former President Ernesto Geisel offered was very decisive. But Neves's moderation was a target of criticism by the
Workers' Party (PT), which did not accept the electoral college. Neves also gained influence inside the
Democratic Social Party PDS when meeting with governors of the
Northeast (all nine of them were elected by the PDS and were, in majority, politicians from a new generation that admired Neves) during the meetings with the Superintendency for the Development of the
Northeast. Minas Gerais belonged to the SUDENE because its North region was part of the drought area known as "Drought Polygon". Many of these governors moved to the Liberal Front that later became the
Liberal Front Party (PFL). Among Neves's admirers, was former Governor of Bahia,
Antônio Carlos Magalhães. Antônio Carlos reacted to the statements made by Air force Minister, Délio Jardim de Matos, who said that whoever abandoned the PDS candidate was a traitor. In response, Antônio Carlos accused Délio Jardim of being such traitor. This was the first time that a minister form the military had been challenged during the Military Regime. From then on, the adherence to Neves only grew. The Baiano leader, Antônio Carlos, then added: "To betray the Revolution of 1964 is to support Maluf for president". In an interview with the newspaper
Pequim in 1984, Neves described Maluf as "symboliz[ing] all of the negative things the Revolution did in the last twenty years." Even though they were indirect elections, Neves still did many rallies in public places. And, in a speech made during his campaign in the city of Vitória in November 1984, he said: "To restore democracy is to restore the republic, it is to build a new republic, mission which I have received from the people and which will become reality by the power of not only a politician, but by of all the Brazilian citizens". The Military Regime ended in 1985 after João Figueiredo's administration was over. The expression "New Republic" became the way in which the period after 1985 became known in Brazilian politics. The Neves-Sarney alliance was then made official and members of the opposition went on the road to defend their proposals in rallies that were as popular as the ones during the campaign. Neves, who was hailed as a conciliation candidate, was elected president by the Electoral College in 1985. He received 480 votes while Maluf received 180 votes and there were 26 abstentions. The majority of these abstentions came from parliamentarians from the Workers' Party. They disobeyed the guidance given by their party and were then removed from it for having voted in Neves. As a result, Congressmen Aírton Soares, José Eudes and
Bete Mendes were expelled from the PT. When the results from the elections were announced on 15 January 1985, Neves said on a speech: "Let us not be dispersed. Let us remain united as we were on public squares, with the same emotion, the same dignity and the same decision. As Tiradentes, that hero crazed by hope, used to say almost 200 years ago, we can make this country a great nation. Let's do that!" His victory was received enthusiastically by the population, and is still considered today as one of the most complex and successful works of "political ingenuity" in the history of Brazilian politics. Soon after, the Workers' Party and the
Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) started making opposition to Neves. On 11 February 1985 edition of the newspaper
Jornal da Tarde there was a headline that read: "The CUT and the PT declared war against Tancredo". As soon as Neves was elected, he made an international excursion where he met with several heads of state in the attempt of gaining support for his office, which was being considered uncertain. He only agreed to have surgical operation after several Heads of state had arrived in Brasília for his inauguration. The meetings with heads of state were a strategic move by Neves to make the process of re-democratization irreversible. Neves's maneuvers were so successful that they made even Ulysses Guimarães (referred to as "Mr. Diretas") abdicate his dispute in order to support him. Their political agreement had included Neves's future support of Guimarães in the next elections that would replace him and would be direct elections. This way, Guimarães gave up his candidacy to Neves. ==Illness and death==