The Green Party candidate, who quit as environment minister in outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government in 2008, is being courted by the two runoff rivals: Dilma Rousseff, Lula's chosen successor, and Jose Serra, Sao Paulo's former state governor.

Both want the 20 million voters Marina Silva represents -- 19 percent of the ballots that theoretically could swing the October 31 knockout round either way.

"We came out of this victorious. We defended a victorious idea and Brazil heard our cry," Silva, 52, told supporters and reporters in a hoarse voice late Sunday.

For Silva, being thrust to the forefront of Brazil's political scene is a remarkable achievement after a life that started in poverty.

Born into an illiterate family of rubber-tappers in the Amazon state of Acre, Silva seemed destined tough, even brief existence.

Instead, she left home at 16 to pursue an education.

After living in a convent and working as a maid, she obtained her bachelor's degree in history -- and then made her way into politics, ending up as a senator defending her beloved Amazon and Brazil's indigenous population.

Lula, who came from similarly humble beginnings, tapped her to become his environment minister in 2003, and she quickly became the face of Brazil's efforts to slow deforestation in the Amazon.

But in 2008, she quit Lula's government and ruling Workers Party in disgust at moves to allow big businesses to develop parts of the Amazon, and she joined the Green Party with an eye to taking over Lula's job.

Pre-election surveys estimated she would come a distant third in Sunday's vote, with 14 percent of ballots.

But her significantly better showing surprised everyone, and now she is seen as a kingmaker, and possibly even a credible presidential contender in the same mold as Lula, who failed three times before finally becoming head of state.

"She has the social characteristics of Lula, coming from the poor north as he did, and she ideologically is close to the Workers Party, or at least the party in its beginnings," Maria do Socorro Sousa Braga, a political science professor at the Federal University of Sao Carlos, told AFP.

But it is not clear that Silva will support Rousseff, who came out ahead in Sunday's vote with 47 percent of ballots to Serra's 33 percent, in the second round.

"Marina left the government pretty disappointed," Sousa Braga said. "And Serra will offer a lot of opportunities for Marina, for instance a ministry."

The Workers Party will also likewise make overtures to try to get Silva on-side, she said.

Carlos Alberto de Melo, a political analyst at the Insper Institute in Sao Paulo, said the unexpected shift to Silva "was a protest vote by part of the electorate who weren't convinced by Dilma or Serra, and who finally voted for Marina to play for time and force a second round."

He added: "The question now is what will happen to those votes in the second round?"

In the end, though, polls and analysts agreed that Rousseff would probably win the second round.

Sousa Braga estimated that around half of Silva's voters could be expected to back Serra in the runoff because they, too, are disillusioned with Lula's party.

That would not be enough to generate an upset, though -- just to whittle down Rousseff's mandate.

Initially projected to take over from Lula with a landslide victory, Rousseff could be forced into a tighter race than expected, analysts said.

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