Brazil is on the verge of electing its first green president.

Environmentalist Marina Silva has taken the lead in Brazil’s presidential race, and is getting set to bring the hopes of disenfranchised minorities to the forefront of Brazilian politics.

Ms Silva was born into a poor, mixed-race Amazon family, but has climbed the political ranks to her current spot as Brazil’s environmental minister, and vice presidential candidate in the October election.

She has performed strongly in the first TV debate between candidates, and polls have shown she will be highly-placed in the first-round vote on October 5.

Many consider it a spectacular turn of events given that Silva did not even have a party this time last year.

“If elected, Marina will be the greenest president in history, the first black president in Brazil and the first to be born in the Amazon,” Brazilian journalist Altino Machado has told The Guardian.

“She has proved her credentials as an environmentalist and protector of the Amazon. She also has a very strong ethical code and is totally free from any taint of corruption, which is extremely rare in politics in Brazil, where scandals happen all the time.”

Ms Silva runs on a platform of greater energy diversity, more wind, solar and ethanol, protection for the Amazon and other moves to maintain Brazil in the face of a rapidly changing and demanding economic environment.

“Sustainable development is a global trend that can be seen in China, India and elsewhere. If I win, of course I want to make Brazil a symbol of that trend. It won’t just be us, but we have enormous potential,” she said in a recent address.

Victory is far from certain several weeks before the election but local reports say Mr Silva’s momentum only seems to grow, and she has a a genuine chance to become the world’s greenest president yet.

As the Guardian reports; “Women are hugely under-represented in Brazilian politics, but it is not because of her gender that Silva could break the mould. That has more to do with the colour of her skin and ideas.”