Brazil party plans to launch Marina Silva presidential bid

Former Senator Marina Silva attends a plenary voting session of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, to try to obtain registration for the creation of a party named Rede Sustentabilidade (Sustainability Network), to contest the 2014 presidential elections in Brazil, in Brasilia October 3, 2013. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

BRASILIA (Reuters) - The Brazilian Socialist Party plans to launch environmentalist Marina Silva as its presidential candidate next week, replacing party leader Eduardo Campos who was killed in a plane clash, a senior party official said on Saturday.

The PSB, as the party is known, has agreed to rally around a Silva candidacy after she pledged to honour the party's programme and its regional alliances, said Beto Albuquerque, a party congressman from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.