[3] A month later, he resigned from Petrobrás and was endorsed as a presidential candidate at ARENA's national convention on September 14; his vice-presidential partner was General Adalberto Pereira dos Santos.

On 15 January 1974, they beat the MDB team formed by Ulysses Guimarães and Barbosa Lima Sobrinho by a score of 400 votes to 76 in the first election held by an Electoral College.

Institutional Act Number Five was used to decree federal intervention in Rio Branco in 1975 after the MDB councillors refused to ratify the mayoral nominee and to remove some parliamentarians from office.

[5][1][6] In the campaign for the 1974 elections, MDB candidates won sixteen of the twenty-two seats in the Federal Senate and increased their representation in the Chamber of Deputies and the Legislative Assemblies.

[9][10] After the deaths of journalist Vladmir Herzog and worker Manuel Fiel Filho in the DOI-CODI, also known as DOPS, between October 1975 and January 1976, the government was forced to curb the actions of the hardliners.

As a result, the trade union movement in the Greater ABC region gained prominence and the figure of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was projected nationally.

[1][19][20] Brazil established diplomatic relations with China and with Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, and was the first nation to recognize Angola's independence.