Dilma Rousseff

Who is Dilma Rousseff?

Dilma Vana Rousseff is a Brazilian politician who has been the 36th President of Brazil since 1 January 2011. She is the first woman to hold the office. She was previously the Chief of Staff to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2005 to 2010.

The daughter of a Bulgarian entrepreneur, Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist during her youth, and following the 1964 coup d'état joined various left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was eventually captured and jailed between 1970 and 1972, where she was reportedly tortured.

After her release, Rousseff rebuilt her life in Porto Alegre with Carlos Araújo, who would be her partner for 30 years. Both helped found the Democratic Labour Party in Rio Grande do Sul, participating in several of the party's electoral campaigns. She became the Secretary of the Treasury of the City of Porto Alegre in the Alceu Collares Administration, and later the Secretary of Energy of the State of Rio Grande do Sul under both the Collares and Olívio Dutra Administrations. In 2000, after an internal dispute in the Dutra cabinet, she left the PDT and joined the Workers' Party.