QUICK FACTS
NAME
Dilma Rousseff
OCCUPATION
President of Brazil
BIRTH DATE
December 14, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
FULLNAME
Dilma Vana Rousseff
NICKNAME
Iron Lady
Synopsis
Rousseff was raised in an upper-middle-class household. Her father was a lawyer who immigrated to Brazil from Bulgaria, and her mother was a teacher. In 1964 Brazil’s president was overthrown by a coalition of civilian and military officials, and the teenaged Rousseff became involved in the left-wing opposition to the government. She was associated with the militant group National Liberation Command (Comando de Libertação Nacional; Colina), and she married fellow activist Cláudio Galeno Linhares in 1968.
After a raid on a Colina safe house resulted in police fatalities, the pair went into hiding in Rio de Janeiro. She and Galeno later fled Rio de Janeiro for Porto Alegre, subsequently separated, and in 1981 divorced.
Rousseff moved to São Paulo, and it was there in 1970 that she was arrested by government forces. She was imprisoned for three years on the charge of subversion and during that time was subjected to torture by her captors.Upon her release in 1973, Rousseff resumed her education; she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre in 1977.
As the grip of the dictatorship weakened, Rousseff became active in local politics, and she was appointed finance secretary for Porto Alegre in 1986. She left that position in 1988 and later spent two years as president of the Foundation of Economics and Statistics of Rio Grande do Sul state (1991–93).
Road to presidency
She returned to government work in 1993 as secretary of mines, energy, and communications for Rio Grande do Sul, and she was credited with increasing energy efficiency and power production within the state. Rousseff left that post in 1994 and later pursued a Ph.D. in economics. Before receiving the degree, however, she was called back to her former government post in 1999, and it was there that she became affiliated with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores). Her standing in the party quickly rose, and she left her government job in 2002 to serve on the staff of Lula’s successful presidential campaign.Upon taking office in 2003, Lula appointed Rousseff minister of mines and energy, and she was named chair of the Brazilian state-run oil concern Petrobrás. Rousseff emphasized the need for Petrobrás to expand its production capacity, and in 2005 Lula appointed her his chief of staff.
An expanding economy and a shrinking poverty rate boosted Lula’s popularity, but he faced a constitutional limit of two terms, so he began grooming Rousseff to be his successor.
She stepped down from Petrobrás in March 2010 to prepare for her presidential campaign. In the first round of voting, in early October, Rousseff failed to capture the 50 percent of votes needed to avoid a runoff. In the second round, held later that month, she won a commanding victory,
capturing some 56 percent of votes. She was sworn into office on January 1, 2011. Making her the first ever Brasilian female president.
In October 2014 she won the brazilian presidential poll, and waa re-elected
