OVER 150,000 people gathered in the Brazilian city of Recife on Sunday to say goodbye to Socialist presidential candidate Eduardo Campos.

Mr Campos was killed in a plane crash less than two months before coming presidential elections.

People lined up for hours to pay their respects, forming a two-mile-long line to file past Mr Campos’s coffin outside Recife’s local government headquarters.

Some sobbed and held flags of the Brazilian Socialist Party, mourning the loss of the candidate who served as governor of the state of Pernambuco twice.

President Dilma Rousseff arrived to pay her respects accompanied by former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and several ministers.

Lula, a close friend of the family, wept as he embraced Campos’s widow Renate after the mass.

Campos’s running mate Marina Silva, who has been chosen to replace him in the campaign, joined the family throughout the vigil.