Good luck, gurl!
Brazil elects Dilma Rousseff as first female president
Dilma Rousseff said she had been given the most important mission of her life
Dilma Rousseff has been elected president of Brazil to succeed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, electoral officials have confirmed.
Ms Rousseff, 62, who has never before held elected office, becomes the country's first woman president.
She promised to "honour the trust" Brazilians had put in her and work to eliminate poverty.
Ms Rousseff was the preferred successor of President Lula, who is leaving after two terms with record popularity.
Thousands of supporters of the governing Workers' Party took to the streets across Brazil to celebrate her victory.
The Superior Electoral Court said that with almost all the votes counted, she had won 56% against 44% for her rival, Jose Serra of the Social Democratic Party.
Although voting is compulsory in Brazil, there was a high rate of abstention at 21.5%.
The second round of voting was forced after Ms Rousseff fell short of the 50% needed in the 3 October first round, winning 47% to Mr Serra's 33%.
'Fundamental promise'
In her victory speech, she said her first priority would be to lift 20 million Brazilians out of poverty.
"I reiterate my fundamental promise: the eradication of poverty," she said. "We must not rest while there are Brazilians going hungry.
Her election as the country's first female leader, Ms Rousseff said, was a sign of the democratic progress Brazil had made.
Her priority now was to make sure that such equality of opportunity between men and women became the norm at every level, she added.
"I would like parents who have daughters to look straight in their eyes and tell them: 'Yes, a woman can.'"
Ms Rousseff, who will be sworn in on 1 January, is expected to continue the left-leaning policies of President Lula, with emphasis on government efficiency, expanding the role of the state in some sectors such as mining, and upgrading the country's decrepit infrastructure.
She will also oversee a huge expansion of Brazil's oil industry, following the discovery of major offshore fields that should make Brazil one of the world's top 10 oil exporters.
She can count on strengthened majorities for the governing coalition in both houses of Congress to help ease the task of pushing her legislative agenda.
Lula effect
Ms Rousseff's victory owed much to the extraordinary popularity of the outgoing President Lula, who endorsed her as his successor from the start.
Mr Lula, who has to step down after completing the maximum allowed two consecutive terms, said he would not interfere in her government.
Ms Rousseff will have "to form a government in her own image. I only hope she achieves more than I did", he said after casting his vote.
He added that he would not be attending public victory celebrations because "this is her party".
Ms Rousseff paid tribute to her mentor, saying: "I will be knocking on his door often, which, I'm sure, will always be open."
Succeeding Lula would be "difficult and challenging", she said, "but I know how to honour his legacy. I know how to consolidate and advance his work."
A former Marxist rebel who was jailed and tortured in 1970-72 for resisting military rule, Ms Rousseff trained as an economist and worked her way up through local and state governments.
She joined President Lula's cabinet as energy minister in 2003-5 and then became his chief of staff.
For Jose Serra, this is the second time he has been defeated in a presidential run-off, after losing to Mr Lula in 2002.
He has congratulated Ms Rousseff and said he hoped she would work for the good of the country.
He said: "I proudly battled the president. To those of us imagining we're defeated: We have only started the real fight."
SOURCE
Dilma Rousseff: From fugitive guerrilla to Brazil's new president
(CNN) -- Dilma Rousseff, who was elected as Brazil's first female president on Sunday, once told reporters that as a typical Brazilian girl in the 1950s she dreamed of becoming a ballerina.
But as the 1960s saw the emergence of a brutal military regime in her country, she had to make some hard choices.
"I quickly discovered that the world had no place for debutantes," Rousseff told reporters.
The daughter of a well-educated Bulgarian emigre, Rousseff took piano lessons as a child and was educated in a French-speaking Catholic school.
But as a fighter for Brazil's left-wing guerrilla movement in 1969, she exchanged a wedding dress for fatigues and went underground, taking on names such as Luiza, Wanda and Estela to avoid the authorities.
With her trademark pixie-short hair style and thick glasses, she became one of most Brazil's most wanted fugitives, branded by some as a "subversive Joan of Arc."
Charged with subversion by the right-wing military government, she suffered through the disappearance and torture of her Marxist companions, some of whom died.
But others eventually rose to office under the government of Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, Brazil's current president, including Environment Minister Carlos Minc and ousted Lula Chief of Staff Jose Dirceu.
When the military finally arrested her in 1970, Rousseff, now 62, says she was severely tortured in order to give up secrets.
She told Istoe magazine in 2008 that as a prisoner she was often tied up to the infamous "parrot's perch," a torture device used by Brazil's military police in which the victim is suspended between two metal platforms.
"They gave me electrical shocks, a lot of electrical shocks," Rousseff told Istoe. "I began to hemorrhage, but I withstood. I wouldn't even tell them where I lived," she said.
After her release in 1972, the military government forbade her to engage in political activities.
With the return of democratic rule in the mid-1980s, Rousseff held a number of political positions, one of them, as energy secretary in Rio Grande do Sul state, where she won praise for her handling of Brazil's largest power outage and turning the state into a road map for making the country an energy powerhouse.
The guerrilla organizations with which she was involved, such as the National Liberation Command, sought to gain control of the government by force. They took inspiration from the Cuban revolution and other Latin American insurgent groups such as Colombia's FARC. But Rousseff dismisses stories that she knows how to handle an AK-47 and that she committed any violent crimes as "legends."
"My involvement was just political," she told TV host Jo Soares in 2008. "I used to have more than a 9th, or 10th degree of myopia," referring to her poor eyesight.
In her official campaign video, President Lula said Rousseff's past is nothing to apologize for and compared her fight against the military regime to other heroes.
"One part of Dilma's life story reminds me of [Nelson] Mandela's," said Lula.
"I remember Mandela once said that he only joined the struggle because they never gave him any other choice. Time went by, and what has happened? He has become one of the greatest symbols of peace and unification in the world."
Some of her critics have slammed her involvement in the guerrilla movement.
During a congressional hearing in 2008, she silenced a senator and won applause for answering criticism that she broke the law in the 1960s for lying to the Brazilian police and for engaging in anti-military subversive activities.
"I was 19 years old, I was in jail for three years and I was barbarously tortured, senator," she said in her televised statement.
"Anyone who dared tell the truth to their torturers would compromise the lives of their friends. They would deliver them to their deaths."
Rousseff returned to school in 1972, graduating in 1977 in economics, according to her official biography.
Her ability to blend her left-wing agenda with entering into pragmatic capitalist alliances is one of the reasons she was tapped as energy minister in 2002.
Rousseff is credited with the democratization of Brazil's energy through a program called Luz Para Todos, "Light for All," bringing electricity to poor farmers.
In 2009, she was diagnosed with an early-stage lymphoma. After undergoing months of chemotherapy, she proudly lifted her wig in front of the cameras when she was declared cured.
Rousseff, who will take office January 1, has acknowledged that being a woman in office has not been easy, and complained of the media's treatment of her as Brazil's "iron lady" after several aides complained about the way she treated subordinates.
"To take care of the government sometimes is like being a mother," she told TV Globo. "You have to ask for results."
Rousseff takes conservative stances on some women's issues. "I am against abortion, I am pro-life," she told Aparecida TV, a Catholic network.
Rousseff is divorced and has a daughter.
SOURCE
Man, I'm young. And still, I was born before we could vote and I witnessed so many historic elections and so much change already... Brazil is complicated, I wish her the best =).
Dilma Rousseff said she had been given the most important mission of her life
Dilma Rousseff has been elected president of Brazil to succeed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, electoral officials have confirmed.
Ms Rousseff, 62, who has never before held elected office, becomes the country's first woman president.
She promised to "honour the trust" Brazilians had put in her and work to eliminate poverty.
Ms Rousseff was the preferred successor of President Lula, who is leaving after two terms with record popularity.
Thousands of supporters of the governing Workers' Party took to the streets across Brazil to celebrate her victory.
The Superior Electoral Court said that with almost all the votes counted, she had won 56% against 44% for her rival, Jose Serra of the Social Democratic Party.
Although voting is compulsory in Brazil, there was a high rate of abstention at 21.5%.
The second round of voting was forced after Ms Rousseff fell short of the 50% needed in the 3 October first round, winning 47% to Mr Serra's 33%.
'Fundamental promise'
In her victory speech, she said her first priority would be to lift 20 million Brazilians out of poverty.
"I reiterate my fundamental promise: the eradication of poverty," she said. "We must not rest while there are Brazilians going hungry.
Her election as the country's first female leader, Ms Rousseff said, was a sign of the democratic progress Brazil had made.
Her priority now was to make sure that such equality of opportunity between men and women became the norm at every level, she added.
"I would like parents who have daughters to look straight in their eyes and tell them: 'Yes, a woman can.'"
Ms Rousseff, who will be sworn in on 1 January, is expected to continue the left-leaning policies of President Lula, with emphasis on government efficiency, expanding the role of the state in some sectors such as mining, and upgrading the country's decrepit infrastructure.
She will also oversee a huge expansion of Brazil's oil industry, following the discovery of major offshore fields that should make Brazil one of the world's top 10 oil exporters.
She can count on strengthened majorities for the governing coalition in both houses of Congress to help ease the task of pushing her legislative agenda.
Lula effect
Ms Rousseff's victory owed much to the extraordinary popularity of the outgoing President Lula, who endorsed her as his successor from the start.
Mr Lula, who has to step down after completing the maximum allowed two consecutive terms, said he would not interfere in her government.
Ms Rousseff will have "to form a government in her own image. I only hope she achieves more than I did", he said after casting his vote.
He added that he would not be attending public victory celebrations because "this is her party".
Ms Rousseff paid tribute to her mentor, saying: "I will be knocking on his door often, which, I'm sure, will always be open."
Succeeding Lula would be "difficult and challenging", she said, "but I know how to honour his legacy. I know how to consolidate and advance his work."
A former Marxist rebel who was jailed and tortured in 1970-72 for resisting military rule, Ms Rousseff trained as an economist and worked her way up through local and state governments.
She joined President Lula's cabinet as energy minister in 2003-5 and then became his chief of staff.
For Jose Serra, this is the second time he has been defeated in a presidential run-off, after losing to Mr Lula in 2002.
He has congratulated Ms Rousseff and said he hoped she would work for the good of the country.
He said: "I proudly battled the president. To those of us imagining we're defeated: We have only started the real fight."
SOURCE
Dilma Rousseff: From fugitive guerrilla to Brazil's new president
(CNN) -- Dilma Rousseff, who was elected as Brazil's first female president on Sunday, once told reporters that as a typical Brazilian girl in the 1950s she dreamed of becoming a ballerina.
But as the 1960s saw the emergence of a brutal military regime in her country, she had to make some hard choices.
"I quickly discovered that the world had no place for debutantes," Rousseff told reporters.
The daughter of a well-educated Bulgarian emigre, Rousseff took piano lessons as a child and was educated in a French-speaking Catholic school.
But as a fighter for Brazil's left-wing guerrilla movement in 1969, she exchanged a wedding dress for fatigues and went underground, taking on names such as Luiza, Wanda and Estela to avoid the authorities.
With her trademark pixie-short hair style and thick glasses, she became one of most Brazil's most wanted fugitives, branded by some as a "subversive Joan of Arc."
Charged with subversion by the right-wing military government, she suffered through the disappearance and torture of her Marxist companions, some of whom died.
But others eventually rose to office under the government of Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, Brazil's current president, including Environment Minister Carlos Minc and ousted Lula Chief of Staff Jose Dirceu.
When the military finally arrested her in 1970, Rousseff, now 62, says she was severely tortured in order to give up secrets.
She told Istoe magazine in 2008 that as a prisoner she was often tied up to the infamous "parrot's perch," a torture device used by Brazil's military police in which the victim is suspended between two metal platforms.
"They gave me electrical shocks, a lot of electrical shocks," Rousseff told Istoe. "I began to hemorrhage, but I withstood. I wouldn't even tell them where I lived," she said.
After her release in 1972, the military government forbade her to engage in political activities.
With the return of democratic rule in the mid-1980s, Rousseff held a number of political positions, one of them, as energy secretary in Rio Grande do Sul state, where she won praise for her handling of Brazil's largest power outage and turning the state into a road map for making the country an energy powerhouse.
The guerrilla organizations with which she was involved, such as the National Liberation Command, sought to gain control of the government by force. They took inspiration from the Cuban revolution and other Latin American insurgent groups such as Colombia's FARC. But Rousseff dismisses stories that she knows how to handle an AK-47 and that she committed any violent crimes as "legends."
"My involvement was just political," she told TV host Jo Soares in 2008. "I used to have more than a 9th, or 10th degree of myopia," referring to her poor eyesight.
In her official campaign video, President Lula said Rousseff's past is nothing to apologize for and compared her fight against the military regime to other heroes.
"One part of Dilma's life story reminds me of [Nelson] Mandela's," said Lula.
"I remember Mandela once said that he only joined the struggle because they never gave him any other choice. Time went by, and what has happened? He has become one of the greatest symbols of peace and unification in the world."
Some of her critics have slammed her involvement in the guerrilla movement.
During a congressional hearing in 2008, she silenced a senator and won applause for answering criticism that she broke the law in the 1960s for lying to the Brazilian police and for engaging in anti-military subversive activities.
"I was 19 years old, I was in jail for three years and I was barbarously tortured, senator," she said in her televised statement.
"Anyone who dared tell the truth to their torturers would compromise the lives of their friends. They would deliver them to their deaths."
Rousseff returned to school in 1972, graduating in 1977 in economics, according to her official biography.
Her ability to blend her left-wing agenda with entering into pragmatic capitalist alliances is one of the reasons she was tapped as energy minister in 2002.
Rousseff is credited with the democratization of Brazil's energy through a program called Luz Para Todos, "Light for All," bringing electricity to poor farmers.
In 2009, she was diagnosed with an early-stage lymphoma. After undergoing months of chemotherapy, she proudly lifted her wig in front of the cameras when she was declared cured.
Rousseff, who will take office January 1, has acknowledged that being a woman in office has not been easy, and complained of the media's treatment of her as Brazil's "iron lady" after several aides complained about the way she treated subordinates.
"To take care of the government sometimes is like being a mother," she told TV Globo. "You have to ask for results."
Rousseff takes conservative stances on some women's issues. "I am against abortion, I am pro-life," she told Aparecida TV, a Catholic network.
Rousseff is divorced and has a daughter.
SOURCE
Man, I'm young. And still, I was born before we could vote and I witnessed so many historic elections and so much change already... Brazil is complicated, I wish her the best =).