BRASILIA (REUTERS) - Brazil's President Michel Temer said on Friday (Feb 23) that he will not run in the Oct 7 election and denied that a federal security intervention in Rio de Janeiro state was designed to improve his low approval ratings.

"I am not a candidate and I won't be a candidate," Temer, a former vice president who took office when leftist Dilma Rousseff was impeached in 2016, said in an interview with Radio Bandeirantes. (This story is developing)