Marina Silva is a veteran in Brazilian politics. Minister of the environment in the Lula administration, she resigned in 2008, switched from the Workers’ Party (PT) to the Green Party (PV) — not uncommon in Brazilian parliamentary politics — and ran for the presidential office in 2010, losing in the first round.

Despite her loss, Silva’s campaign was emblematic. Considered to be an alternative to partisan disputes between the PT and the conservative Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), she was a protest vote for many. Others truly believed Silva could do better than the candidates of the other main parties. Left-leaning voters believe her environmental concern and humble background could help to offset capitalist-developmentalist trends in Lula’s government, while center-right voters saw her as a PT dissident that could work to reform the economy in their favor.

Even as a second runner-up, she snatched almost 20 percent of the vote.