Further offices held

Chief of Staff of the Presidency
In office 21 June 2005 – 31 March 2010
President	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Preceded by	José Dirceu
Succeeded by	Erenice Guerra
Minister of Mines and Energy
In office 1 January 2003 – 21 June 2005
President	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Preceded by	Francisco Luiz Sibut Gomide
Succeeded by	Silas Rondeau
Secretary of Mines, Energy and Communications of Rio Grande do Sul
In office 1 January 1999 – 2 November 2002
Governor	Olívio Dutra
Preceded by	Gustavo Eugenio Dias Gotze
Succeeded by	Luiz Valdir Andres
In office 1 December 1993 – 2 January 1995
Governor	Alceu Collares
Preceded by	Airton Langaro Dipp
Succeeded by	Assis Roberto Sanchotene de Souza
Secretary of Finances of Porto Alegre
In office 1 January 1986 – 24 September 1988
Mayor	Alceu Collares
Preceded by	Jaime Oscar Silva Ungaretti
Succeeded by	Políbio Braga

Personal details

Born

14 December 1947 (age 77)
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Political party

PT (2001–present)

Other political
affiliations

PDT (1979–2001)

Spouses

Cláudio Galeno Linhares

(m. 1967; separated 1969)

Carlos Paixão de Araújo

(m. 1969; div. 2000)

Children

Paula Rousseff

Alma mater

Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul

Signature

Dilma Vana Rousseff ( born 14 December 1947) is a Brazilian economist and politician who has been the Chair of the New Development Bank since March 2023. Previously, she served as the 36th president of Brazil from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016.

She is the first woman to have held the Brazilian presidency. She also previously served as the chief of staff to former and current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2005 to 2010.

Early life
Education
Career
Popularity
International recognition
Impeachment
Post-presidency
Private life
Images for kids
See also

Early life

Dilma Rousseff (center) with her parents and siblings.

Dilma Vana Rousseff was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, on 14 December 1947, to Bulgarian lawyer and entrepreneur Pedro Rousseff (born Petar Rusеv, Bulgarian: Петър Русев, 1900–1962) and schoolteacher Dilma Jane da Silva (26 June 1924 – 13 July 2019). The couple had three children: Igor, Dilma Vana, and Zana Lúcia (who died in 1977).

Pedro Rousseff was a contractor for Mannesmann steel in addition to building and selling real estate. The family lived in a large house, had three servants, and maintained European habits. The children had a classical education with both piano and French lessons. After they overcame the initial resistance of the community to accepting foreigners, the family attended traditional clubs and schools.

Education

Dilma studied in Nossa Senhora de Sion School (current Santa Doroteia School), in Belo Horizonte.

Rousseff was enrolled in preschool at the Colégio Izabela Hendrix and primary school at Colégio Nossa Senhora de Sion, a girls' boarding school run by nuns, who primarily taught in French. Her father died in 1962.

In 1964 Rousseff left the conservative Colégio Sion and joined the Central State High School, a co-ed public school where the students often protested against the dictatorship that had been established after the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état.

Career

Dilma Rousseff takes the oath of office of the President of Brazil, 1 January 2011.

Dilma Rousseff receiving the presidential sash from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 1 January 2011.

Rousseff and her daughter Paula wave to the crowd from the presidential Rolls Royce during the second inaugural parade, 1 January 2015.

President Rousseff greets German Chancellor Angela Merkel upon her arrival to the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, 20 August 2015.

Rousseff joined left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. She was captured and jailed from 1970 to 1972.

After her release, Rousseff rebuilt her life in Porto Alegre with her husband Carlos Araújo. They both helped to found the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) in Rio Grande do Sul, and participated in several of the party's electoral campaigns. She became the treasury secretary of Porto Alegre under Alceu Collares, and later Secretary of Energy of Rio Grande do Sul under both Collares and Olívio Dutra. In 2001, after an internal dispute in the Dutra cabinet, she left the PDT and joined the Workers' Party (PT).

In 2002, Rousseff became an energy policy advisor to presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who on winning the election invited her to become his minister of energy. After chief of Staff José Dirceu resigned in 2005, Rousseff became chief of staff and remained in that post until 31 March 2010, when she stepped down to run for presidency. She was elected in a run-off on 31 October 2010, beating Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) candidate José Serra.

On 26 October 2014 she won a narrow second-round victory over Aécio Neves, also of PSDB, to serve her second term as president.

Popularity

Rousseff (center) with other BRICS leaders in 2014

Rousseff with Argentine President-elect Mauricio Macri in 2015

Rousseff (second from left) with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Uruguayan President José Mujica and Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2012

Rousseff maintained a majority approval rating throughout her first term. In late March 2013, her government was approved by 63% of Brazilians, while her personal approval rating was at 79%, a personal high. Rousseff was also cited as the preferential candidate for 58% of the voters in the 2014 presidential election, in which she was reelected. Rousseff's popularity is attributed to popular measures of her government, such as the reduction of the federal tax in the energy bill and the exemption of federal tax in the products of the consumer basket (meat, milk, beans, rice, flour, potatoes, tomatoes, bread, sugar, coffee powder, cooking oil, butter, bananas and apples). The lowering of the overnight rate conducted by the Central Bank of Brazil is also mentioned as a cause for Rousseff's high popularity. This has caused some to consider her "populist", a consideration shared by her predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

In early 2015, Rousseff's popularity began to decline and in February 2015, a month before the 2015 protests in Brazil began, Rousseff's approval rating dropped 19 points to 23% with 44% disapproving of her.

In July of the same year, her approval rating reached a new low (9%), while her disapproval rating reached 64%. By late 2015, thousands of Brazilians began to protest, demanding Rousseff's impeachment.

International recognition

President Rousseff is awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award in New York City, 21 September 2011.

Rousseff was ranked fourth in Forbes' 2014 list of the most powerful women in the world, and the second most powerful in 2013. In 2015 she was the 7th, and in 2016 she was no longer in the list.

In August 2011, Rousseff was included in the Forbes list of the most powerful women in the world, at the 3rd position, behind Merkel and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In October 2010, she was included in the Forbes list of the most powerful people in the world, at the 16th position. She was the third highest placed woman on the list, after Angela Merkel and Sonia Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress.

On 20 September, she received a Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award at the Pierre Hotel in New York City, a distinction which was also given to her predecessor in 2009. On the following day, she became the first woman to open a session of the United Nations General Assembly. Rousseff was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine on 26 September 2011.

	Country	Date
Grand Cross of the Order of the Balkan Mountains	Bulgaria	5 October 2011
Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic	Spain	19 November 2012
Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru	Peru	4 November 2013
Collar of the Order of the Aztec Eagle	Mexico	26 May 2015

Impeachment

On 2 December 2015, Eduardo Cunha, president of the Chamber of Deputies, accepted a petition for Rousseff's impeachment. A special committee held hearings and recommended that the full Chamber authorize presenting the charges to the Senate. On 17 April 2016, the lower house voted by the required majority of two-thirds of its members to present the impeachment petition to the Senate, and did so on 18 April 2016.

A Senate special committee concluded in a report that the accusation justified an impeachment trial and recommended an impeachment trial. On 12 May 2016, the Senate began the impeachment trial. Rousseff was notified and under the Constitution of Brazil automatically suspended from the presidency pending a final decision of the Senate. Vice President Michel Temer assumed her powers and duties as acting president of Brazil during the suspension.

On 31 August 2016, the Senate, sitting as a judicial body, voted 61–20 in favor of a guilty verdict, convicting Rousseff of breaking budget laws and removing her from office. Temer subsequently assumed the office and was sworn in as President of Brazil.

Suspended president Rousseff during an interview with Al Jazeera at the Alvorada Palace, 1 June 2016.
Rousseff delivering her farewell address after being removed from office by the Senate, 31 August 2016.

Post-presidency

Rousseff with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg, Russia on 26 July 2023

On 5 August 2018, the Workers' Party convention in Minas Gerais officialized Rousseff as a Senate candidate, representing the state, in the 2018 elections. She placed fourth in the election. Of the two seats in the Senate for Minas Gerais, Rodrigo Pacheco and Carlos Viana were the winners.

Rousseff was an interviewee for the 2019 documentary The Edge of Democracy.

On 24 March 2023, Rousseff was elected as the president of the BRICS-led New Development Bank.

Private life

In 1968 she married journalist Cláudio Galeno de Magalhães Linhares, who introduced 20-year-old Rousseff to the underground resistance movement against the dictatorship. In the early 1970s, Rousseff separated from Galeno and started a relationship with Carlos Franklin Paixão de Araújo. She legally divorced Galeno in 1981.

Rousseff and Araújo have a daughter named Paula Rousseff de Araújo born in 1976. Rousseff divorced Araújo in 2000.

According to Rousseff, she enjoys history and is interested in opera. In the early 1990s, she enrolled in a course in Greek theater taught by playwright Ivo Bender. Greek mythology then became an obsession for her, and, influenced by Penelope, she decided to learn how to embroider. Her favorite actress is Fernanda Montenegro. Her website claims she is an avid reader, citing Machado de Assis, Guimarães Rosa, Cecília Meireles, and Adélia Prado as her favorite authors.

She understands English very well when spoken slowly and can speak Spanish and limited amounts of French.

Images for kids

Dilma Rousseff during an interview in São Paulo.
Carlos Minc, who was also a VAR Palmares militant, denied Rousseff's role as head of the clandestine organization.
Gateway of Tiradentes Prison in São Paulo city, where Rousseff was held during the military dictatorship.
Rousseff on trial before the military dictatorship judges in 1970. Note they choose to hide their faces from the camera.
Dilma Rousseff after voting in Porto Alegre, in 2010.
Dilma Vana Rousseff at the christening of grandson Gabriel, with daughter Paula and son-in-law Rafael Covolo and Dilma Jane Rousseff, the great-grandmother (far left).
Rousseff receiving a photograph of Hugo Chávez from Nicolás Maduro at the Planalto Palace, 9 May 2013.
President Dilma Rousseff on, 22 May 2014.
Dilma Rousseff in a meeting with evangelical singers and bishops, at the Planalto Palace.
Dilma Rousseff and Leonel Brizola.
Dilma Rousseff in 2009.
Dilma Rousseff speaks during a meeting in Brasília, March 2009.
Rousseff and President Lula during the Growth Acceleration Program in November 2009.
Luz para Todos program.
Dilma Rousseff and Barack Obama at the White House, 2009.
Dilma Rousseff in the 2010 Workers' Party National Convention.
Rousseff gives her first public speech after being elected Brazil's first female president, 31 October 2010.
President Rousseff meets with Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov in Sofia, October 2011
Rousseff's Cabinet during her first term.
Rousseff with President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy and President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso with in EU–Brazil Summit in Brussels on 3 October 2011
Thousands of protesters against the government of President Rousseff march en route to the National Congress in Brasilia, 13 March 2016.

Dilma Rousseff facts for kids

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