BRASILIA, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The ruling Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) on Thursday officially named former finance minister Henrique Meirelles as its presidential candidate in October elections.

Meirelles was elected during the party's national convention in Brasilia, garnering 85 percent of the delegates' votes.

Brazil's President Michel Temer and ex-president Jose Sarney were among the party leaders attending the gathering.

Meirelles becomes the party's first presidential candidate since 1994, when the former governor of Sao Paulo state, Orestes Quercia, ran unsuccessfully.

Temer became president by way of the vice presidency, after Dilma Rousseff of the Workers' Party was impeached. Rousseff had picked Temer to be her running mate, believing the Workers' Party didn't have the votes to win without the MDB.

Meirelles, 72, joined the ruling party in April with the idea of becoming its candidate, after polls showed Temer suffers from record low popularity rates.