Dilma Rousseff first woman president of Brazil

Nksagar - Sagar Media Inc -

Brazilian President-elect Dilma Rousseff, election campaign on extending the legacy of President Lula da Silva, won her first election on Sunday as Brazilians voted overwhelmingly for continuity. Rousseff, an economist is a former Marxist guerrilla who was jailed and tortured for three years in the early 1970s for fighting against Brazil’s dictatorship. She served as Silva’s chief of staff before Lula handpicked her as his successor.

Rousseff chose a seven-member transition team that draws heavily from the moderate wing of her left-leaning Workers' Party.The prominent among them is


Antonio Palocci, a well-regarded former finance minister under Lula da Silva who is popular with Wall Street and is likely to take a prominent post in Rousseff's administration, potentially chief of staff.

Others members include Jose Eduardo Dutra, the president of the Workers' Party and a former chief executive of state oil giant Petrobras; Fernando Pimentel, a former mayor of Belo Horizonte; and Marco Aurelio Garcia, Lula da Silva's foreign policy adviser.

Rousseff spent most of Monday meeting with advisers and talking to foreign heads of state by telephone at her home in Brasilia.The headline in Monday's O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper was simply: “Lula's victory.”

At Lula da Silva's suggestion, Rousseff will travel with the president to the G20 summit in South Korea on November 10-12, where the leaders of the world's top economies will discuss currency tensions that are high on the agenda in Brazil.One of Rousseff's first challenges when she takes office on New Year's day will be to address Brazil's hard-charging currency, which is trading near a two-year high and damaging exporters.

Brazil's Bovespa stock index rose more than 1%.

Her life sketch drawn by various agencies - Dilma Rousseff has served at many government posts at the provincial and federal levels, but never ran in an election or took a party post. Given her lack of public visibility, the critical factor in Rousseff’s win was her full support of Lula, who enjoyed an approval rating of more than 80 percent despite the imminent end of his term in office. It is fair to call Rousseff’s victory Lula’s victory.

Lula, who built his career through the labor movement, won the presidential election in October 2002. At the time, investment guru George Soros predicted that Brazil could suffer bankruptcy with Lula in office. Lula, pursued a pragmatic policy in which he encouraged investment by domestic and foreign companies while caring for the socially underprivileged. The Brazilian economy, which had been derided as a “chicken that could not fly,” grew an annual average of 5 percent from 2003 to 2008. The country is expected to post annual growth at the 7-percent level this year, the highest in 24 years. Brazil became the world’s 12th-largest economy in 2005 in overtaking Korea and now ranks eighth. Proactive diplomacy in the international stage under Lula, including successful bids to host the 2012 World Cup soccer finals and the 2016 Summer Olympics, have also elevated the national pride of the Brazilian people. Even a left-leaning politician deserves acclaim if he or she can perform as well as Lula.
Media agencies