Dilma Rousseff was elected as Brazil's first female president on Oct. 31, 2010, in a vote that was seen as a call to continue the economic and social policies of the popular president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Ms. Rouseff had served as chief of staff for Mr. da Silva and was his hand-picked candidate to succeed him. After two four-year terms, Mr. da Silva was barred by Brazil’s Constitution from running for a third consecutive term — although he could run again in four years. His approval ratings have hovered near 80 percent.
Ms. Rousseff joins a wave of elected female leaders breaking the gender barrier in the past five years, including Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina and Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Ms. Rousseff, 62, defeated José Serra, the former governor of São Paulo, with 56 percent of the vote to 44 percent.
In choosing Ms. Rousseff, who has no elected political experience, voters sent a message that they preferred to give the governing Workers Party more time to broaden the successful economic policies of Mr. da Silva, whose government deepened economic stability and lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty and into the lower middle classes.
But Ms. Rousseff is hardly a carbon copy and faces some monumental tasks that he has left unfinished: fixing the nation’s troubled educational record, improving dismal health and sanitation standards for millions, and turning Brazil into the kind of developed nation it envisions itself becoming.
In her early 20's, Ms. Rousseff battled a military dictatorship as a part of a militant group with Marxist-Leninist underpinnings, and was imprisoned and tortured. She has already indicated that she favors giving the state greater control over the economy, especially the oil industry, potentially steering the country farther to the left than under the pragmatic approach of Mr. da Silva.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/dilma_rousseff/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=Dilma%20Rousseff&st=cse02/11/2010, 08:09
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