Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos was killed in a plane crash on Wednesday, throwing the October election off the predicted track, according to The Associated Press.
A private jet carrying Campos and his entourage crashed in a residential area in bad weather as it prepared to land in the coastal city of Santos, the AP reported. The accident killed all seven people on board, the Sao Paulo state fire department said.
All seven people aboard the plane, including a campaign photographer and cameraman, a press adviser and two pilots, died in the crash, Santos City Hall press officer Patricia Fagueiro told the AP.
Campos, 49, was running on a business-friendly platform and was in third place in recent polls with the support of about 10 percent of voters, according to the AP.
While he was not expected to win the Oct. 5 vote, he was widely seen as one of Brazil's brightest young political stars and his death instantly changes the dynamics of the race, the AP reported.
His running mate, environmentalist Marina Silva, is a former presidential candidate and was even better known than Campos at this relatively early stage of the campaign, according to the AP. If she runs in his place, as electoral law says she can, Silva could eat into Rousseff's support among leftist voters.
In the hours after the crash, politicians from all sides expressed grief for a charismatic young former governor who even opponents privately whispered was likely to become president, probably not in 2014, but someday, the AP reported.
Rousseff, who is leading the race, announced she would suspend all campaigning for three days, according to the AP.
"Today Brazil is in mourning and reeling from a death that took the life of a promising young politician," Rousseff said, adding that Campos had been facing "an extremely promising future," the AP reported.
