Brazil chooses former guerilla, Dilma Rousseff as President

An ex guerilla turned economist, Dilma Rousseff and confidant to Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, the Braziliant President was elected to succeed the latter in runoff vote against the ex governor of Sao Paulo, Jose Serra. Jose Serra is also the minister to Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is the predecessor of Lula.

Rousseff’s triumph was seen as endorsement of policies laid by Lula, which enacted for about eight years. Rousseff the 62 years old intellectual as well as opera aficionado who greatly takes pleasure in attending concerts at Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Washington becomes the first female president of Brazil and fourth of Latin America in the recent times.

Rousseff won mainly because the Brazilians are happy with the condition of their nation and even with Lula’s popularity. Paulo Sotero, the director of Brazil Institute at Woodrow Wilson Center said that Lula is genuine leader. He further added that bankers and businesses are not at all complaining and thus Rousseff is beneficiary for all this.

Rousseff earned name and respect from Lula. In the role of minister of energy, she helped a lot by resolving various big electricity shortages. In the year 2005, she became the chief of staff of Lula at the time when the latter’s administration was filled with scandals and his reign came near to total collapsing situation.

While Dilma Rousseff gives importance to Brazil-US relationship, she has even promised to lay stress on promoting integration in South America and furthering its ties with developing world.

This simply shows that she will try to continue keeping relationship of Brazil with Huge Chavez, Raul Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad of Venezuela, Cuba and Iran respectively.