BRAZIL ELECTS FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT

Dilma Rousseff, a former rebel and longtime bureaucrat who has never held elective political office, become Brazil's first female President following her victory on 31st October, 2010, in a runoff election.

Dilma Rousseff won the runoff with the support of the enormously popular outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. However, she is going to inherit a strong Nation with a few looming problems.

Anaysts have agreed that it was not Workers' Party candidate Rousseff's record, campaign proposals or oratory that provided her with the margin of victory, but the strong backing of outgoing President Lula who is very popular for his leadership over eight years of economic growth, social gains and Brazil's emergence as a player on the global stage.

Although Dilma Rousseff will enter office on the crest of the stongest economic growth in two decades, the nation's lowest unemployment rate on record and an even stronger congressional majority than Lula had, Rousseff must soon grapple with several difficult issues. Brazil faces enormous infrastructural challenges to deal with its rapid economic growth. Although Brazil has the highest tax rate in Latin america, money is scarce for needed power plants, roads and ports. With inflation an issue, Rousseff's management of the economy will come under intense scrutiny.

Dilma Rousseff, 62, is the daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant father and schoolteacher mother. While studying economics in University, she joined an urban guerrilla group called National Liberation Command to oppose military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. She was jailed and tortured in the early 1970s.

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