The President

Dilma Vana Rousseff was born on 14 December 1947 in the city of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state. She is the daughter of Pétar Russév, a Bulgarian immigrant who changed his name to Pedro Rousseff after arriving in Brazil, and Dilma Jane da Silva, a teacher. Dilma developed a strong interest in politics while at school in Belo Horizonte. As a teenager she became involved with clandestine left-wing organizations opposed to the military dictatorship that took power in Brazil in 1964. In 1969 she married Carlos Araújo, a lawyer and political activist from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The couple were pursued by the military authorities, and Dilma was sentenced to a three-year prison term for 'subversion'. She was subjected to torture while incarcerated at the Tiradentes prison in São Paulo between 1970 and 1972. After her release she moved to Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, and went to university. In 1975 she began an internship at the Economics and Statistics Institute in the Rio de Grande state government. The following year she and Araújo had their first child. Dilma and Araújo helped found the left-wing Democratic Labour Party (PDT) in Rio Grande do Sul. She worked as a party adviser between 1980 and 1985, and in 1986 became Secretary of the Treasury of the Porto Alegre municipal government. Democracy was reestablished in Brazil in 1985, and in the 1989 presidential election Dilma participated in the campaign of the left-wing candidate Lionel Brizola, who was eliminated in the first round of voting. In the second round she supported the remaining left-wing candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT), who lost to Fernando Collor. At the beginning of the 1990s Dilma returned to the Economics and Statistics Foundation of the Rio Grande do Sul state government, now as its president. In 1993, after the election of Alceu Collares as state governor, she became State Secretary for Mines, Energy and Communication. Dilma and Carlos Araújo divorced in 1994. In the late 1990s Dilma began a doctorate in social sciences at Campinas University in São Paulo state, but was drawn away from her academic work by her ongoing involvement in the politics of Rio Grande do Sul. When Olívio Dutra of the PT was elected state governor in 1998, with the support of the PDT, she returned to the post of State Secretary for Mines, Energy and Communication. In 2000 Dilma joined the PT. The party's leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, would be elected president of Brazil two years later, and reelected in 2006. President Lula chose Dilma as his Minister for Mines and Energy in 2003. Between 2003 and 2005 Dilma oversaw a significant restructuring of Brazil's energy sector, chaired the administrative council of Petrobras, and created the Luz Para Todos rural electrification programme. In 2005 Dilma became Lula's chief of staff, a role in which she took charge of major strategic initiatives such as the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC) and the social housing programme Minha Casa, Minha Vida. She also coordinated the interministerial commission responsible for drawing up rules for the exploitation of Brazil's recently-discovered 'pre-salt' oil reserves. In April 2009 Dilma began treatment for early-stage lymphatic cancer, which continued until September that year and was pronounced completely successful. Dilma and President Lula launched the second Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC 2) in March 2010, and on 3 April Dilma stepped down from the federal government to announce her candidature for the presidency. In the second round of the presidential election, on 31 October 2010, Dilma, at the age of 62, was elected as the first female president of Brazil. She took office on 1 January 2011.

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