Brazil’s First Female President

Dilma Rousseff was a former Marxist guerrilla who was tortured and imprisoned during Brazil’s long dictatorship was elected Sunday as the first female president of Latin America’s biggest nation, a country in the midst of a rapid economic growth  and political rise.

In a 25-minute victory speech to jubilant supporters in Brasilia, Rousseff said that her first promise was to “honor the women” of Brazil and that she hoped her win would allow “mothers and fathers to look their daughters in the eyes and say, ‘Yes, a woman can.”She is known for her serious and tough demeanor,Rousseff only betrayed emotion when she spoke about President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s popular leader for  the last eight years who chose her as his party’s candidate to succeed him and used all his political will to get her elected.”The joy I feel with this victory today is mixed with the emotion of his farewell to leadership.

I know that a leader like Lula will never be away from his people,” she said, using the president’s nickname as her voice cracked and her eyes welled with tears, “I will always be able to knock on his door and I’m sure that it will always will be open.The constitution barred Silva from running for a third consecutive four-year term. There is talk in the  Brazil’s press that he is setting himself up for a new run at the presidency in 2014, which would be legal.