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José Ribamar Ferreira de Araújo Costa (born April 24, 1930, in Pinheiro, Maranhão) served as president of the Federative Republic of Brazil from March 15, 1985 to March 15, 1990.
Known as José Sarney, he was elected as governor of the state of Maranhão in 1966 serving until 1971. At this time Sarney was a politician of the ARENA, the support party of the militar regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985. In 1979 Arena changed its name to PDS and then Sarney become president of the party. In 1984, the military rule was under pressure due popular support of direct elections for president (Diretas Já moviment). As the government party, PDS was divided, but launched Paulo Maluf as its candidate to presindent in indirect elections. Sarney disagree, left PDS and joined the opposition. Due the complex transition to democracy in Brazil, Sarney become the vice-president of Tancredo Neves, in the opposition ticket. Neves won the election of January 15, 1985, but on the eve of take oath he become severely ill. Sarney assumed as acting president until Neves died on April 21, then he formally become the first civilian president in 21 years. He had to face a lot of problems, like the enormous foreign debt, rampant inflation, corruption and to complete the transition to democracy. Sarney launched a economic plan to stabilize the economy, called "Plano Cruzado", successful at first, but the inflation become stronger than ever after a year. A new and democratic constitution was promulgated in 1988, and in the following year it was held the first direct elections since 1960. Sarney left the presidency at the end of his term and become senator, being the head of the Senate from 2003 to 2005.
| Preceded by: João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo | President of Brazil | Succeeded by: Fernando Collor de Mello |