Jose Alencar | Brazil vice president, 79

Jose Alencar, 79, Brazil's former vice president, died Tuesday in Sao Paulo after a long battle with abdominal cancer.

The textile magnate shared eight years of government with Brazil's first working-class president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who left office as new leader Dilma Rousseff was sworn in at the new year.

With Rousseff and Silva on a trip to Portugal, interim President Michel Temer offered his condolences to Mr. Alencar's family, calling the former vice president an example of perseverance and hard work for all Brazilians.

Mr. Alencar underwent 17 surgeries, including one at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He had also been treated with an experimental drug at the University of Houston's MD Andersen Cancer Center.

He won the respect of many Brazilians with candid talk about living with cancer and his promotion of preventive practices that lead to early detection.

Mr. Alencar, a multimillionaire businessman, was picked as Silva's running mate in 2002 in a clear bid to win the support of bankers, ranchers, business leaders, military officers, and foreign investors who feared the former trade union leader's radical leftist past.

Like Silva, Mr. Alencar was raised poor; he was the 11th of 15 siblings. While Silva joined the labor movement and toiled as a lathe operator, Mr. Alencar built an empire of textile factories and amassed a fortune once estimated at $200 million.

Mr. Alencar eventually turned to politics in the conservative Liberal Party dominated by evangelical Christians. He was elected to Brazil's Senate in 1998.

- AP