Hailing from the poor north eastern state of Maranhão, José Sarney made an unlikely president of the republic in the 1980s, but he has since succeeded in bringing his family-name from the outer fringes to the centre of Brazilian politics. In April 1985, having been elected as vice-president, he assumed the presidency after the untimely death of Tancredo Neves, the country's first post-dictatorship president, who never got to don the presidential sash. His mandate is best remembered for a deep financial crisis, his opposition to IMF support and a moratorium on Brazil's external debt interest payments. First elected as a federal deputy in 1955 at the age of 25, Sarney rose to prominence in 1966 as an outspoken and eloquent critic of the ruling Maranhão oligarchies. The documentary film Maranhão 66, which juxtaposes Sarney's emotive words with footage of the abject living conditions he rallied against, went on to become one of the most celebrated films of the period. During his early political career, in which he was twice state senator and once state governor, he was a member of a several different political parties from across the spectrum, but is now a longstanding veteran of the centrist Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), which has been not been out of government since the return to democracy in 1985. Since 2002, the PMDB has been the main coalition partner in the current leftwing labour government led by President Lula da Silva.
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