Dilma Rousseff

Dilma Vana Rousseff (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈdʒiwmɐ ˈvɐ̃nɐ ʁuˈsɛf(i)] ; born 14 December 1947), often known mononymously as Dilma, is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th president of Brazil from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She is the only woman to have held the Brazilian presidency to date. Since March 2023, she has been the chair of the New Development Bank. She also served in the cabinet of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during his first presidency—first as Minister of Mines and Energy, from 2003 to 2005, then as Chief of Staff from 2005 to 2010.

Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist in her youth. After the 1964 coup d'état she joined left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was captured, tortured, 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 in a political crisis triggered by the Mensalão corruption scandal, Rousseff became chief of staff and remained in that post until 31 March 2010, when she stepped down to run for president. She was elected in a run-off in 2010, beating Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) candidate José Serra. In 2014 she won a narrow second-round victory over Aécio Neves, also of the PSDB, to serve her second term as president.