Brazil’s Vice President Michel Temer said on Tuesday he is not seeking to run for president in 2018, but his PMDB party is keen to launch its own candidate and has released a pro-business economic agenda as its platform.
The PMDB, the largest party in Brazil’s ruling coalition, has clashed repeatedly with President Dilma Rousseff and her leftist Worker’s Party this year over the handling of the sharpest recession in 25 years, and plans to leave her government before the 2018 campaign.
“Temer for president!” supporters chanted as he arrived at a meeting of his centrist party in Brasilia, where members openly criticized Rousseff and called for an immediate break with her government.
Playing down his own ambitions, Temer said Tuesday’s meeting was called to debate an economic program and not the parting of ways with Rousseff’s embattled government.
Rousseff has become the most unpopular Brazilian president in a generation and is facing calls for her impeachment even within the ranks of officially allied parties such as the PMDB.
A kickback scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras has also hurt Rousseff, although she has not been implicated – unlike PMDB leaders, including house speaker Eduardo Cunha who is charged with taking a $5 million bribe.
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Brazil Energy Insight 
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