The events surrounding the tragic illness and death of President-elect Tancredo Neves have led some observers to ascribe a new political maturity to Brazil. Nevis, the grandfatherly figure who was to become the first civilian president most Brazilians had ever known, never took the oath of office. Instead, it fell to an unlikely and unpredictable politician named José Sarney to break the string of generals who have ruled the country since a bloodless military coup in 1964. During the five weeks of Neves's lingering intestinal ailment, Sarney ruled as acting president with the collaboration of the country's entire political and civilian leadership. Now, without a figure of national unity to rely upon, Sarney—a former head of the military governments's party, who only last summer became a convert to the democratic opposition—holds in his hands the fate of the government that Brazilians have labeled hopefully the New Republic.