Dilma Rousseff

Dilma Rousseff on April 7, 2008.

Dilma Vana Rousseff (born December 14, 1947) is a Brazilian economist and politician of Bulgarian origin who served as the 36th President of Brazil from 2011 until her impeachment in 2016.

In the 1970s, she was a member of a left-wing guerrilla that fought against the military dictatorship in Brazil. Rousseff is a member of the Worker's Party and the Chief of Staff of Brazil since 2005, when she became the first female to hold that office. At her election on October 31, 2010, she became the first female President of Brazil.

Quotes

2008

• Any comparison between the military dictatorship and democracy can only come from those who do not value the Brazilian democracy. (...) I am proud to have lied. Lying under torture is not easy. In the face of torture, a person with dignity lies. Enduring torture is very difficult (...) The pain is unbearable; you can not imagine how. I am proud to have lied, because I saved my comrades from the same torture and from death.
  • Responding to Senator José Agripino Maia - former member of ARENA, ruling party of the military dictatorship - in a Senate hearing, May 7. He suggested that, for having lied when she was interrogated by the political police, she could also have been lying about the leak of data of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's personal expenditures.

2010

• Reality has changed, and we changed with it. However, I never changed sides. I have always been on the side of justice, democracy and social equality.
  • Interview to Veja magazine, February 24.

• It'a an immense joy to be here today. I have received from millions of male and female Brazilians the most important mission of my life. This fact, beyond myself, is a demonstration of the democratic development of our country because for the first time a woman will rule Brazil.
  • First speech after being elected President, October 31.

• We cannot rest while Brazilians are going hungry, while families are living in the streets, while poor children are abandoned to their own fates and while crack and crack dens rule.
  • First speech after being elected President, October 31.

2013

• If today is Children's Day, yesterday I said that child... the children's day is mother's day, father's day and teachers' day, but is also the day of the animals. Whenever you look at a child, there is always a hidden figure, which is a dog behind, which is something very important.
  • Speech in Porto Alegre (YouTube), October 12.

2022

• There is no more significant geopolitical consequence today than the growing strategic partnership between China and Russia. Ironically, it is precisely the maximum US pressure on Russia and the containment of China that played a key role in bringing the two countries closer together. The economic sanctions stemming from Russia’s annexation of Crimea and now the war in Ukraine are strengthening a new geopolitical pole, and accelerating changes that would only come slowly.
  • quoted in "Brazil’s ex-president Dilma Rousseff: US-China conflict is neoliberalism vs. socialism" by Ben Norton, March 23, 2022.

About Dilma Rousseff

• Minister Dilma Rousseff has a strong personality, a male side in the way in which she stamps her management.
  • Gilberto Gil, Minister of Culture (2003–2008). IstoeÉ magazine, December 28, 2005.

External links

• Biographical data of Minister Dilma Rousseff from the official website of the Presidency of Brazil