Tancredo Neves was one of the most important characters in politics and history in the 20th century. He was present in important moments of the governments of Getúlio Vargas and João Goulart. Tancredo opposed the military during the Military Dictatorship and was one of the politicians most engaged with the redemocratization process in Brazil.
Tancredo Neves was the protagonist of one of the most unusual episodes in our history. Elected president of Brazil, in 1985, he felt sick the day before his inauguration, needing to be hospitalized and operated on. He died a victim of the complications of his health problem, and the presidency was assumed by the vice, José Sarney .
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Family life of Tancredo Neves
Tancredo Neves was born in São João del-Rei , a city in the interior of Minas Gerais, well known for its colonial style, on March 4, 1910 . His father was called Francisco de Paula Neves and his mother was Antonina de Almeida Neves. He had a total of eleven siblings and in his childhood he had good conditions as his father owned some properties in the city as well as a trade.
he studied at two local colleges and when he finished his basic education in 1927, he sought to enter some university to gain better opportunities in life. At graduation, Tancredo was forced to work to maintain his studies, because his family had not had the same financial condition since his father died in 1922.
he tried to enter the careers of engineer , sailor and doctor , but failed or gave up on these career options and ended up entering the field of Law , when he found himself out of options. The Faculty of Law was in Belo Horizonte, forcing Tancredo to move to the capital of Minas Gerais. There he worked in different trades in order to survive until the completion of his course in 1932.
Tancredo Neves in politics
Tancredo Neves' biographers say that he had an interest in politics that he showed during his youth. The first major event in which Tancredo Neves expressed his political positions was the Revolution of 1930. He supported the military uprising which resulted in the deposition of Washington Luís and brought Getúlio Vargas to the presidency .
From 1932 onwards, in addition to having started his career as a lawyer, Tancredo was also arrested for the first time, precisely for participating in an event to support Paulistas who participated in the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932. The following year, Tancredo joined a small political party and officially began his involvement with politics.
In 1935, Tancredo Neves ran for councilman in São João del-Rei and was elected as the most voted candidate. He took over the post and became mayor of your city. This political experience of Tancredo was short-lived, because, in November 1937, the Estado Novo coup established a dictatorship and put an end to the Legislative's activities throughout the country. With that, Tancredo resumed his legal career and continued in it until the mid-1940s.
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National projection by Tancredo Neves
From the late 1940s, Tancredo Neves resumed political life, because the democratic system was rebuilt in the country, a period known as the Fourth Republic, and Tancredo Neves played important roles in Brazilian politics. That's because Tancredo was part of Minas Gerais politics, one of the most important at the time.
In the second government of Getúlio Vargas, Tancredo received an invitation from the president to assume the Ministry of Justice at one of the most critical moments in our political history. Tancredo Neves was given the role of trying to stop the coup wave that was present in Brazilian politics. He had to deal with the effects of the crisis caused by the Tonelero Street Attack in August 1954.
Furthermore, Tancredo was elected at different times during the Fourth Republic to the positions of deputy state and federal . He acted directly to ensure Juscelino Kubitschek's victory in the 1955 presidential election, but he did not hold any political office during that government. Throughout this period, Tancredo was affiliated with the PSD, the Partido Social Democrático .
During the coup attempt with the initiatives to prevent the inauguration of João Goulart (also called Jango) as president, Tancredo Neves intervened with the solution that resolved this crisis. His suggestion that Brazil join parliamentaryism was adopted and this secured Jango's possession on September 7, 1961.
Tancredo Neves was chosen as prime minister of Brazil and held the post for ten months, but resigned due to the difficulties of the position. He ran for federal deputy and was elected in 1962.
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Performance of Getúlio Vargas during the Dictatorship
The 1964 military coup interrupted democracy in Brazil and imposed a regime that lasted 21 years. Tancredo positioned himself against the coup and he had the courage not to ratify the election that transformed Humberto Castello Branco into the first military president of that period. He abstained from voting for the military candidate (people close to Tancredo, like JK, did not have the same courage).
Tancredo Neves joined the opposition party to the military, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB). The Minas Gerais politician was never a staunch and radical opponent of the stance, therefore, he always preferred a less radical position and more conciliatory. With the erosion of the military in power, Tancredo became one of the most influential politicians in the struggle for redemocratization.
In 1978, he was elected senator and, in 1982, he was elected governor of the state of Minas Gerais , by defeating the military candidate, Eliseu Resende. Tancredo obtained more than 2.5 million votes and the victory, in one of the largest electoral colleges in Brazil, gave Tancredo the referendum for the contest for the presidency that would be held in 1985.
Tancredo Neves for the presidency
In 1983, the Dante de Oliveira Amendment , which proposed the return of direct voting for the presidential election. This proposal set the whole country on fire and started the Campanha das Diretas Já . Tancredo participated and supported the campaign, but his political ambition to be president secretly led him to lean towards the proposal of indirect election in 1985.
He was in favor of this type of vote, because in the indirect election he would be the ideal candidate, since the realization of a conciliated democratic transition was much easier. In addition, Tancredo's election to the presidency would have less opposition from the military. In the election direct , Tancredo's chances were reduced, because the strongest candidate for the popular vote would be Ulysses Guimarães .
The Dante de Oliveira Amendment was not approved , and the 1985 election was decided by indirect vote. Thus, the opposition articulated its ticket, formed with Tancredo Snows on presidency and Joseph Sarney to vice , to defeat the military. Sarney's choice was strategic and was part of a plan to win the votes of dissidents from the PDS, the party of the military.
Tancredo's strategy was perfect and he won with 480 votes , 300 more than his opponent, Paulo Maluf. This made Tancredo Neves president of Brazil with his inauguration scheduled for March 15, 1985. The apprehension and expectation of the entire country for this event were enormous.
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Death of Tancredo Neves
During the entire election campaign and after that period had passed, Tancredo hidden that he was sick . For months he had severe pain in his abdomen and he dealt with this situation with private medical treatments and self-medication. However, the case of the Minas Gerais politician needed surgical intervention, but Tancredo refused to do it before taking office, because he feared that the military would remove him from the presidency.
The idea was to have the surgery on March 17, two days after taking office, but a malaise caused by severe abdominal pain led Tancredo to be admitted to Hospital de Base do Distrito Federal, on the night of March 14, that is, hours before da possession . It turned out that Tancredo had an advanced infection and he underwent surgery. The medical care that Tancredo received is understood as questionable and flawed by historians.
It was defined that the inauguration of the presidency would be carried out by José Sarney, something that was received with indignation, after all, Sarney had been a supporter of the military throughout the Military Dictatorship. The idea was that Tancredo would resume the presidency when he recovered, but that never happened. Tancredo underwent seven surgeries , was hospitalized for weeks, first in Brasília and then in São Paulo, and could not resist his condition.
The death of Tancredo Neves took place on April 21, 1985 . His body was veiled in São Paulo and he was buried in Minas Gerais. The presidency remained in the hands of José Sarney and the entire process of redemocratization in Brazil was conducted during this period.
Image credits
[1] FGV/CPDOC