Dilma Rousseff member of political party Workers' Party
Dilma Vana Rousseff (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈdʒiwmɐ ˈvɐ̃nɐ ʁuˈsɛf(i)]; born 14 December 1947) is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th president of Brazil, holding the position from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She is the first woman to have held the Brazilian presidency and had previously served as chief of staff to former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2005 to 2010.Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist in her youth and after the 1964 coup d'état 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 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.Impeachment proceedings against Rousseff began in the Chamber of Deputies on 3 December 2015. On 12 May 2016, the Senate of Brazil suspended President Rousseff's powers and duties for up to six months or until the Senate decided whether to remove her from office or to acquit her. Vice President Michel Temer assumed her powers and duties as acting president of Brazil during her suspension. On 31 August 2016, the Senate voted 61–20 to convict, finding Rousseff guilty of breaking budgetary laws and removed her from office.On 5 August 2018, the PT officially launched Rousseff's candidacy for a seat in the Federal Senate from the state of Minas Gerais. Despite leading in the polls in the run-up to the election, Rousseff finished fourth in the final vote and was defeated for her Senate run.When asked about the criminal prosecution against Flamengo goalkeeper Bruno Fernandes de Souza, accused of killing his former girlfriend Eliza Samudio, Rousseff said that she opposes the death penalty. According to her, "if it were effective, there would not be such crimes in the United States."Rousseff opposes gay marriage, but supports same-sex civil unions. She said, "Marriage is a religious issue. I, as an individual, would never say what a religion should or should not do. We have to respect them." On the subject of same-sex civil union, Rousseff said that "basic civil rights should be recognized within the civil legal framework." She also opposes the decriminalization of illegal drugs, stating that "Brazil today is in no condition to propose the decriminalization of any drug."As a member of the Workers' Party, a social-democratic party which opposes Third Way politics, Rousseff was expected to be against privatization and neoliberalism. The Nation, as an example of this rationale, described Rousseff's victory as a defeat for the Washington Consensus. Rousseff, however, has had an ambiguous stance on issues that involve privatization. She is, for instance, "in favor of granting to private enterprises the construction of new power plants and roads, should it be cheaper to do them through grants than through public works." Additionally, she favored the privatization of airports in order to prepare Brazil's infra-structure for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
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