Neves, 75, Denied Brazil’s Presidency by Illness, Dies

RIO DE JANEIRO —  Brazilian President-elect Tancredo Neves, thwarted by illness from becoming Brazil’s first civilian leader in 21 years, died Sunday after undergoing seven operations since March 14, the government announced. He was 75.

His death Sunday evening, at Sao Paulo’s Clinicas Hospital, came shortly after he was reported in “irreversible condition” with severe heart and lung complications.

Neves, a centrist politician whose career spanned half a century, was chosen president by the Electoral College in January, restoring civilian rule after two decades of authoritarian military governments in Brazil.

His condition had deteriorated Thursday because of infections that followed seven operations in four weeks, six for abdominal problems plus a tracheotomy to insert a breathing tube in his throat.

Dr. Warren M. Zapol, a physician from Boston specializing in lung illnesses and intensive-care therapy, examined Neves on Saturday and said he was suffering from fibrosis, or a hardening of the air sacs in his lungs.

Zapol, a Harvard Medical School professor, said the cause was high doses of oxygen being pumped into Neves’ lungs, presidential spokesman Antonio Brito reported. Neves also was supported by an artificial kidney machine.

At Zapol’s recommendation, doctors lowered Neves’ body temperature to 86 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce his need for oxygen. Normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees. Doctors also were using a new U.S.-made drug to prevent more fibrosis.

Neves first underwent emergency intestinal surgery hours before he was to be sworn in March 15. Complications led to further surgery and affected his lungs, kidneys and circulation.

Vice President Jose Sarney, who has been serving as acting president, has governed the country since Neves became ill.

Hundreds of people had kept a round-the-clock vigil outside Clinical Hospital. After the announcement of Neves’ death, military police took up positions around the hospital, apparently to prevent tumult.

Festivities celebrating the 25th anniversary of Brasilia, the modern inland capital city, were canceled because of the president-elect’s condition.

Tancredo de Almeida Neves’ political skills were legendary. In a life devoted to elective office, putting together political deals and running public affairs, he built a system of personal relations that extended from army generals to labor leaders and from Roman Catholic bishops to business magnates.

When the hour came for the transition from authoritarian military rule to restored democracy, Neves emerged as the moderate, experienced figure who offered conciliation and national unity around a program of gradual social reforms for the poor and respect for private property and monetary stability for the wealthy.

Return to Democracy

Neves was chosen by the main opposition parties to lead the return to democratic government because of a lifelong record of standing by constitutional principles and working with the political leaders of the populist tradition here, men such as former Presidents Getulio Vargas and Juscelino Kubitschek.

In the public eye, Neves was a credible symbol of democracy. He had been a young minister of justice under President Vargas in 1954 when that populist leader committed suicide rather than bow to military demands that he resign. He had been one of the closest political supporters of President Kubitschek, who built Brasilia, the new capital, and created millions of blue-collar jobs through industrial programs.

When the military allowed the direct election of state governors in 1982, Neves was elected governor of his home state of Minas Gerais, the second largest in Brazil, by the opposition Brazilian Democratic Movement Party.

In 1984, popular sentiment against the military led to huge demonstrations in favor of direct, popular elections for president. The military opposed this move, and Congress narrowly defeated a constitutional amendment that would have eliminated indirect election by an Electoral College.

Neves and other opposition leaders sensed the opportunity to turn the Electoral College against the military when the pro-government Democratic Social Party split over the presidential candidacy of Paulo Maluf. Using all his political skills as a patient negotiator, Neves built an alliance with official party dissidents that gave him a majority in the Electoral College. That body elected him president on Jan. 15.

Neves was never a stirring public speaker, but he campaigned all over Brazil, visiting 20 state capitals, and drew large crowds that illustrated support for his call for democratic reforms.

Brazil wanted change. The short, balding, paunchy Neves, talking in his shirtsleeves to enthusiastic crowds about his dreams of land reform, municipal development, schools for the millions of illiterate children and fair wages for workers, seemed to hold out hope.

He said Brazil’s foreign debt of $100 billion would be paid but not at the expense of the “misery of the poor.” But he placated foreign bankers during a trip to Western Europe and the United States after his election, saying Brazil would not break with the International Monetary Fund or declare a unilateral moratorium.

In Washington, he said industrialized Brazil, the world’s eighth-largest economy, was no longer part of the Third World, and he said his country was “probably the best friend of the United States in the world.”

Neves was born in the traditional colonial city of Sao Joao del Rei on March 4, 1910, into a family of prosperous tradesmen and storekeepers. After a short period at the mining school at Ouro Preto, Neves transfered to the law school and became a lawyer. Some of his first clients were labor unions of workers on the railroad that served the mines in his region.

He entered politics in 1934, when he was elected to the town council, which then elected him mayor of his hometown. He quit politics in 1937 when a dictatorship was established in Brazil, but he was back in 1945 when he was elected state deputy from his town.

He reached the national level when he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1950. When President Vargas took office in 1951, he spotted the young deputy as a loyal and talented newcomer, and he made him minister of justice.

The Vargas suicide temporarily set back Neves’ political career, but he was propelled to new heights by the election of his friend Kubitschek as president in 1956. Neves became a director of the Bank of Brazil and then president of the new National Economic Development Bank under Kubitschek.

Another high point in his career came during the critical year of 1961, when President Janio Quadros resigned only seven months after taking office, and the military resisted giving the presidency to the Vice President Joao Goulart. Neves engineered a compromise under which a parliamentary system was established, with Neves as prime minister, temporarily reducing the president’s powers. Goulart and his supporters overturned this with a national plebiscite, and Neves resigned as prime minister.

In 1964, when the armed forces overthrew and exiled Goulart, launching 21 years of military rule, Neves was a federal deputy. He kept his seat for 14 years, until he ran for senator and was elected in 1978. This was the springboard for his election as governor of Minas Gerais.

Neves was married to Risoleta Tolentino, who is from a wealthy, landed family in Minas Gerais. They had three children and nine grandchildren.