José Sarney de Araújo Costa (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛ saʁˈnej dʒi aɾaˈuʒu ˈkɔstɐ]; born José Ribamar Ferreira de Araújo Costa; 24 April 1930) is a Brazilian politician, lawyer, and writer who served as 31st president of Brazil from 1985 to 1990.

Sarney ran for Vice-President on the ticket of Tancredo Neves of PMDB, formerly the opposition party to the military government.

Neves won the presidential election, but fell ill and died before taking office, and Sarney became president.

He started out his term with great popularity, but public opinion shifted with the Brazilian debt crisis and the failure of Plano Cruzado to abate chronic inflation.

His government is seen today as disastrous and clientelism was widespread having longlasting consequences for the Brazilian Republic post military dictatorship.

[7][9] He was a member of the centre-right National Democratic Union (União Democrática Nacional—UDN), aligned with the progressive wing of the party.

[9] He strongly supported so-called "Revolution of 1964", a military coup that overthrew leftist President João Goulart in 1964.

[10] Despite his support for the government's heavy-handed measures against dissent, Sarney had never been quite accepted by the military establishment, which tried to block his career.

[12] In 1984, the junta was under pressure due to popular protests to reinstate direct elections for president (Diretas Já movement).

[13] Sarney disagreed with this decision and left PDS to form the Liberal Front Party, which then allied with the PMDB.

[16] Sarney and the president of Argentina, Raúl Alfonsín, started the process of creating a common market between the two nations in 1985.

[3] Sarney faced many problems: enormous foreign debt, rampant inflation and corruption as well as the transition to democracy.

Sarney supported Fernando Henrique Cardoso as presidential candidate in 1994 and 1998 and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002.

[27] Sérgio Machado, former president of Transpetro, said in his plea agreement within the Operation Car Wash that Sarney received R$18.5 million of the bribe money from a Petrobras subsidiary, in the PMDB account during the period in which he directed the company (2003–2015).