95 Facts About Tancredo Neves

Tancredo Neves served as Minister of Justice and Internal Affairs from 1953 to 1954, President of the Council of Ministers from 1961 to 1962, Minister of Finance in 1962, and as Governor of Minas Gerais from 1983 to 1984.

Tancredo Neves was elected President of the Republic in 1985, but died before taking office.

Tancredo Neves began his political career with the Progressistas of Minas Gerais, for whom he served as city councilman of Sao Joao del Rei from 1935 to 1937.

Tancredo Neves received the majority of votes and became President of the Municipal Legislature.

Tancredo Neves was elected state representative and congressman as a member of the Social Democratic Party.

Tancredo Neves took office in June 1953, acting as Minister of Justice and Internal Affairs until the suicide of President Getulio Vargas.

In 1954 Neves was elected congressman and served for one year.

Tancredo Neves was nominated President of the Council of Ministers after President Janio Quadros resigned and the introduction of the Parliamentary Regime in 1961 and was re-elected congressman in 1963.

Tancredo Neves was a leader of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, a political party created on 27 October 1965 through the Institutional Act Number Two which abolished all existing parties and the institution of bi-partisanship.

Tancredo Neves was later re-elected congressman several times between 1963 and 1979.

Tancredo Neves joined the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party the following year and was elected governor of Minas Gerais where he served from 1983 to 1984.

In 1984, Tancredo Neves ran for president with the help of Ulysses Guimaraes, and was elected President of Brazil on 15 January 1985 by the indirect voting of an electoral college.

However, Tancredo Neves fell gravely ill on the eve of his inauguration, 14 March 1985, and died 38 days afterwards.

Tancredo Neves died of diverticulitis and never assumed his position as president.

Tancredo Neves was the last Mineiro President to be elected in the 20th century.

Tancredo Neves was one of the most important Brazilian politicians in the 20th century and one of the major statesmen of Brazilian history.

Tancredo Neves was born at 3:30 BRT on 4 March 1910 in Sao Joao del-Rei, Minas Gerais and was of mostly Portuguese, but Austrian descent and graduated in law.

Tancredo Neves was a descendant of Amador Bueno, a noted paulista from the colonial Brazilian era.

Tancredo Neves's parents were Francisco de Paula Neves and Antonina de Almeida Neves.

Tancredo Neves was a sympathizer of the Liberal Alliance that had brought Getulio Vargas to power with the outbreak of the 1930 Revolution.

Tancredo Neves studied at Colegio Santo Antonio, a Franciscan school, concluding his studies in humanities in 1927.

Tancredo Neves began his political career as a member of the legislative chamber of his hometown in 1934, and was elected in 1947 to the Minas Gerais state legislature.

Tancredo Neves served in that post until Vargas committed suicide in 1954.

In 1960, Tancredo Neves ran unsuccessfully for governor of Minas Gerais.

Tancredo Neves was married to Risoleta Guimaraes Tolentino and they had three children.

Tancredo Neves received an honorary doctorate from the University of Coimbra, and was called "Doctor Tancredo" by his close colleagues.

Tancredo Neves is the grandfather of Aecio Neves, who was Minas Gerais's governor between 2003 and 2010 and is currently a senator.

Tancredo Neves joined the Progressive Party of Minas Gerais, party which was formed by members of the Mineiro Republican Party, who supported the Revolution in 1930.

Tancredo Neves was not able to finance his candidacy as state representative in 1934, but he was elected Sao Joao del Rei's city councilman in 1935 and president of the City Council when he became the mayor.

Tancredo Neves was an entrepreneur in the textile sector for some time.

Tancredo Neves governed until Getulio Vargas was deposed on 29 October 1945.

Tancredo Neves was elected Minas Gerais' state representative by Benedito Valadare's PSD, and was designated as one of the spokesmen of the state Constitution of Minas Gerais.

Tancredo Neves was elected congressman in 1950, and Juscelino Kubitschek was elected Governor of Minas Gerais, defeating situationist Gabriel Passos.

In 1953, Kubitschek and Vargas agreed to appoint Tancredo Neves minister of justice of Minas Gerais, a post which had to be filled by a delegate of the PSD of Minas Gerais.

Tancredo Neves left the parliamentary seat and began to serve as Minister of Justice on 26 June 1953.

Tancredo Neves closed the Service of Assistance to Minors after journalist Villas-Boas Correa's denunciation.

Tancredo Neves visited the location with the journalist in the middle of the night.

Tancredo Neves ordered that the doors be broken open, and they found inside the place dirty beds and girls who were "piled up as rags" and had injuries.

Tancredo Neves resigned as minister after Vargas' suicide on 24 August 1954, twenty days after the assault against journalist Carlos Lacerda.

Tancredo Neves was giften a Parker-21 fountain pen by Vargas, since then been passed down to his grandson, Aecio Tancredo Neves, former Governor of Minas Gerais.

Tancredo Neves remained loyal to Vargas's memory, opposing Joao Cafe Filho's administration, and was one of the people who articulated Juscelino Kubitschek's candidacy as president, in the 1955 elections.

Tancredo Neves was nominated President of Credit Bank of Minas Gerais by Governor Clovis Salgado da Gama.

In 1956 Juscelino Kubitschek nominated Tancredo Neves for the carteira de redesconto of the Bank of Brazil, which he was a part of until 1958, when he was nominated secretary of Treasury under Bias Fortes' administration.

Tancredo Neves then left the post in order to run for governor of Minas Gerais, but was defeated by Jose de Magalhaes Pinto of the National Democratic Union.

On 25 August 1961, Tancredo Neves pronounced the installation of parliamentarism; therefore, preventing Joao Goulart from assuming the Presidency under a Military Coup.

Tancredo Neves attributed the turmoil generated by the countrymen to the existence of "an archaic rural structure" and took the initiative to propose political measures aimed at solving the problem, such as the Rural Union Plan, which was approved by the office council and largely expanded a contingent of sixteen million agricultural workers, including the illiterate.

When Tancredo Neves reported to Congress, he highlighted that the estimated deficit was around 200 billion cruzeiros, but the forecast increase of the public service salaries would elevate the amount to 330 billion.

Back at the Chamber of Deputies, Tancredo Neves maintained his support of Joao Goulart's administration until he was deposed by the Military Coup in 1964.

Tancredo Neves was one of the few politicians who went to see Joao Goulart off at the Salgado Filho Airport, in Porto Alegre, when he left to Uruguay on exile.

Tancredo Neves was the only member of the Social Democratic Party who did not vote for General Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco during the presidential elections by the National Congress on 11 April 1964.

Tancredo Neves politely declined the invitation due to the presence of his adversaries from the UDN, especially Jose de Magalhaes Pinto from the new situationist college.

Tancredo Neves was re-elected congressman in 1966,1970 and 1974.

Tancredo Neves did not object to dialogue with the situacionist forces.

Tancredo Neves founded the Popular Party in 1980 and was elected as its president.

Tancredo Neves did that by gathering moderates from the MDB and the ARENA around him, including his old rival Jose de Magalhaes Pinto, during President Joao Goulart's administration which had recreated a multiparty system in 1979.

In 1980 Tancredo Neves defended the incorporation of the Popular Party into the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party when faced with difficulties created by the electoral rules that would be applied in the 1982 elections.

Tancredo Neves's running mate and Vice Governor, Helio Garcia, gave him the support that was fundamental to his election.

Garcia was very knowledgeable about the small counties in Minas Gerais, which Tancredo Neves used to call "grotoes".

Tancredo Neves resigned the post as senator just a few days before assuming the Palacio da Liberdade, and was substituted by Alfredo Campos.

Tancredo Neves maintained his conciliatory stance even when in executive office, which guaranteed a good standing with the Federal Government.

Tancredo Neves renounced his seat as state governor on 14 August 1984 in order to run for presidency, and turned the government of Minas Gerais over to Helio Garcia.

Tancredo 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".

Tancredo Neves then continued to defend the approval of Congress' 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".

Tancredo Neves's proposal was quickly repelled by the "malufistas" who interpreted it as a way to derail the leader's candidacy.

Tancredo Neves was later followed by Jorge Bornhausen, who left the party.

Tancredo Neves secretly wanted businessman Antonio Ermirio de Moraes to be vice-president.

Tancredo Neves's father, Jose Ermirio de Moraes had been senator through the Brazilian Labour Party in Pernambuco and was a friend of Getulio Vargas.

Tancredo Neves's secret was revealed and the possibility of Antonio becoming vice-president was discarded in Sao Paulo.

Tancredo Neves was cast as candidate for having approval by the military and for being considered a moderate.

Tancredo Neves gained influence inside the Democratic Social Party PDS when meeting with governors of the Northeast during the meetings with the Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast.

Tancredo Neves, who was hailed as a conciliation candidate, was elected president by the Electoral College in 1985.

Tancredo Neves received 480 votes while Maluf received 180 votes and there were 26 abstentions.

Tancredo Neves only agreed to have surgical operation after several Heads of state had arrived in Brasilia for his inauguration.

The meetings with heads of state were a strategic move by Tancredo Neves to make the process of re-democratization irreversible.

Tancredo Neves's maneuvers were so successful that they made even Ulysses Guimaraes abdicate his dispute in order to support him.

Tancredo Neves gathered the support of Congress and state governors, and travelled abroad as the elected president.

Tancredo Neves had been suffering strong abdominal pain during the days preceding his inauguration.

Tancredo Neves decided to only announce his illness on the day of his inauguration, 15 March 1985 after the heads of state who were supposed to be present had arrived in Brasilia.

Tancredo Neves read the statement that Neves had written for his inauguration, preaching national conciliation and the installation of a constituent national assembly.

On 28 June 1985 Sarney fulfilled the promise Tancredo Neves had made during his campaign, to bring Message 330, which called for the convening of a new Constituent Assembly, to National Congress.

The Hospital da Base in Brasilia was undergoing restoration when Tancredo Neves was admitted, and had no ICU; this contributed to complications after Tancredo Neves's surgery, and his health declined.

Tancredo Neves was transferred to the Hospital das Clinicas da Universidade de Sao Paulo in Sao Paulo.

Rumors at the time said that Tancredo Neves had been dead for days, and that his death had been concealed while a new government presided by Sarney could be formed and so the date of his death would coincide with Tiradentes' death.

Tancredo Neves was the first politician from the military opposition to be elected president since the military coup of 1964.

Tancredo Neves's funeral was one of the largest funerals in Brazil's history.

In March 2008, Tancredo Neves's grave was vandalized and the marble piece from the upper part of the tomb was broken.

Tancredo Neves was honored in Sao Joao del Rei with the installation of his statue placed next to the statue of Tiradentes In 2012, Neves's children requested a Habeas Data from the Federal Justice in Brasilia.

In 1990, the Tancredo Neves Memorial was opened in his hometown Sao Joao del Rei, where a narration of his personal and political journey can be found.

Tancredo Neves is remembered as "a conciliating and an able political articulator".

The Tancredo Neves Bridge connects the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu with the Argentine Puerto Iguazu, crossing over the Iguassu River.

Tancredo Neves wrote not only articles for newspapers such as Estado de Minas, O Correio and Diario de Sao Joao del Rei, but he was author of The Parliamentary Regime and Brazil's Reality and The World Scene and National Security, published in the magazine Revista Brasileira de Estudos Politicos.

Tancredo Neves wrote numerous speeches and opinions that were published in newspapers, magazines and parliamentary annuals.

Tancredo Neves left two testimonials that were featured on books.

In 2013, the Tancredo Neves Memorial was inaugurated in Brasilia.

On 25 May 1938, Tancredo Neves married Risoleta Guimaraes Tolentino with whom he had three children; one of them, Ines, married politician Aecio Ferreira da Cunha.