INTERVIEW-Possible Brazil candidate wants green election choice
* Potential candidate wants environment on agenda
* Silva will decide this month on joining Green Party
* Decision on presidential bid could take months
By Carmen Munari
SAO PAULO, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Brazil's former environment minister and potential 2010 presidential candidate, Marina Silva, told Reuters on Friday it is time to put the environment on the election agenda in Latin America's biggest country.
Silva said last week she is considering running for president as the Green Party candidate in the October 2010 presidential election, a move that could further undermine the chances of Dilma Rousseff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chief of staff and chosen candidate.
Silva told Reuters she had not yet made her decision to leave Lula's ruling Workers' Party, but would not delay it for much longer. She added, however, that a decision to run for president could yet take months.
"Sustainable development is something that needs to be on the agenda and Brazil is in a good position to change its development model," Silva said by telephone from the capital Brasilia.
She echoed critics who say big business interests have overshadowed conservation interests in the government of Lula, who was hailed as Brazil's first "green president" when he was first elected in 2002.
"Political parties have never promoted this debate," Silva said.
The Lula administration has a mixed environmental record. It has stepped up the fight against loggers, ranchers and farmers deforesting the Amazon but also promotes large-scale infrastructure projects that critics say fuel destruction.
Silva, a towering figure for conservationists who rose to the national stage from a poor rubber-tapper family in the Amazon forest, stepped down as environment minister in May last year, saying she lacked support to implement her agenda.
Lula had publicly rebuffed her for delaying key public works projects.
The soft-spoken Silva, who has been ill for years with tropical diseases and metal poisoning, will decide this month whether to abandon Lula's ruling Workers' Party, in which she has been active for three decades.
Analysts say she could attract left-wing middle-class voters concerned with the environment as well as women voters who might otherwise vote for Rousseff.
Rousseff currently trails in opinion polls to Jose Serra, the governor of Sao Paulo state, who is likely to run as the candidate of the main opposition PSDB party.
"I won't delay (the decision) as if it were a soap opera," Silva said, adding that she would contemplate the move until the middle of next week.
"The Green Party is proposing change and I'm interested in that change," she said.
Under Brazilian electoral law, candidates must join a party a year before elections and formalize their bid six months before voting day. (Writing by Raymond Colitt; editing by Stuart Grudgings and Vicki Allen)
* Silva will decide this month on joining Green Party
* Decision on presidential bid could take months
By Carmen Munari
SAO PAULO, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Brazil's former environment minister and potential 2010 presidential candidate, Marina Silva, told Reuters on Friday it is time to put the environment on the election agenda in Latin America's biggest country.
Silva said last week she is considering running for president as the Green Party candidate in the October 2010 presidential election, a move that could further undermine the chances of Dilma Rousseff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chief of staff and chosen candidate.
Silva told Reuters she had not yet made her decision to leave Lula's ruling Workers' Party, but would not delay it for much longer. She added, however, that a decision to run for president could yet take months.
"Sustainable development is something that needs to be on the agenda and Brazil is in a good position to change its development model," Silva said by telephone from the capital Brasilia.
She echoed critics who say big business interests have overshadowed conservation interests in the government of Lula, who was hailed as Brazil's first "green president" when he was first elected in 2002.
"Political parties have never promoted this debate," Silva said.
The Lula administration has a mixed environmental record. It has stepped up the fight against loggers, ranchers and farmers deforesting the Amazon but also promotes large-scale infrastructure projects that critics say fuel destruction.
Silva, a towering figure for conservationists who rose to the national stage from a poor rubber-tapper family in the Amazon forest, stepped down as environment minister in May last year, saying she lacked support to implement her agenda.
Lula had publicly rebuffed her for delaying key public works projects.
The soft-spoken Silva, who has been ill for years with tropical diseases and metal poisoning, will decide this month whether to abandon Lula's ruling Workers' Party, in which she has been active for three decades.
Analysts say she could attract left-wing middle-class voters concerned with the environment as well as women voters who might otherwise vote for Rousseff.
Rousseff currently trails in opinion polls to Jose Serra, the governor of Sao Paulo state, who is likely to run as the candidate of the main opposition PSDB party.
"I won't delay (the decision) as if it were a soap opera," Silva said, adding that she would contemplate the move until the middle of next week.
"The Green Party is proposing change and I'm interested in that change," she said.
Under Brazilian electoral law, candidates must join a party a year before elections and formalize their bid six months before voting day. (Writing by Raymond Colitt; editing by Stuart Grudgings and Vicki Allen)
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