Dilma Vana Rousseff 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.
111 Facts About Dilma Rousseff
2.
Dilma Rousseff is the first woman to have held the Brazilian presidency and had previously served as chief of staff to former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from 2005 to 2010.
3.
Dilma Rousseff became a socialist in her youth and after the 1964 coup d'etat joined left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship.
4.
Dilma Rousseff was captured, tortured, and jailed from 1970 to 1972.
5.
Dilma Rousseff became the treasury secretary of Porto Alegre under Alceu Collares, and later Secretary of Energy of Rio Grande do Sul under both Collares and Olivio Dutra.
6.
In 2002, Dilma Rousseff became an energy policy advisor to presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who on winning the election invited her to become his minister of energy.
7.
Dilma Rousseff was elected in a run-off on 31 October 2010, beating Brazilian Social Democracy Party candidate Jose Serra.
8.
Impeachment proceedings against Dilma Rousseff began in the Chamber of Deputies on 3 December 2015.
9.
Dilma Rousseff's father was born in Gabrovo, in the Principality of Bulgaria, and was a friend of the Nobel Prize-nominated Bulgarian poet Elisaveta Bagryana.
10.
Dilma Rousseff arrived in Brazil in the 1930s, already widowed, but soon moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
11.
Dilma Rousseff returned to Brazil several years later, settling in Sao Paulo, where he succeeded in business.
12.
Pedro Dilma Rousseff was a contractor for Mannesmann steel in addition to building and selling real estate.
13.
Dilma Rousseff was enrolled in preschool at the Colegio Izabela Hendrix and primary school at Colegio Nossa Senhora de Sion, a girls' boarding school run by nuns, who primarily taught in French.
14.
Dilma Rousseff's father died in 1962, leaving behind about fifteen properties.
15.
In 1964 Dilma Rousseff left the conservative Colegio Sion and joined the Central State High School, a co-ed public school where the students often protested against the dictatorship that had been established after the 1964 Brazilian coup d'etat.
16.
Dilma Rousseff joined the second group, which became the National Liberation Command.
17.
Dilma Rousseff participated in COLINA and advocated Marxist politics among labour union members and as editor of the newspaper The Piquet.
18.
Dilma Rousseff was 21 and had just finished her fourth semester at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais School of Economics.
19.
Dilma Rousseff remained in Rio and helped the organization, attending meetings and transported weapons and money, according to piaui.
20.
Dilma Rousseff met Rio Grande do Sul-born lawyer Carlos Franklin Paixao de Araujo, then 31 years old, at a meeting; the two developed an attraction to one another.
21.
Dilma Rousseff had traveled through Latin America, met Castro and Che Guevara, and been imprisoned for several months in 1964.
22.
Dilma Rousseff joined the armed struggle after the issue of AI-5 by the dictatorship in 1968.
23.
Dilma Rousseff attended meetings about the merger, formalized in two conferences in Mongagua, thus leading to the creation of Revolutionary Armed Vanguard Palmares.
24.
Police commissioner Newton Fernandes, who investigated the clandestine organization in Sao Paulo and profiled dozens of their members, said that Dilma Rousseff was one of the principal masterminds.
25.
Testimonials and police reports indicated that Dilma Rousseff was responsible for managing the money from the robbery, paying the salaries of the militants, finding a shelter for the group, and buying a Volkswagen Beetle.
26.
Dilma Rousseff only remembers purchasing the car, and doubts that she was the one responsible for managing the money.
27.
Antonio Roberto Espinosa, former head of both VPR and VAR Palmares, was reported to have said that Dilma Rousseff was one of the five members of the organization's leadership aware of it.
28.
Dilma Rousseff emphatically denies that she was aware of the plan and doubts that anyone involved really remembers much about it.
29.
Dilma Rousseff said that Rousseff never participated or planned any paramilitary actions; her role was only political.
30.
Dilma Rousseff avoided the risk of keeping them in apartments by moving with a friend to a simple boarding house in the eastern zone of the city, where they hid the weapons under their beds.
31.
Jose Olavo Leite Ribeiro, who met three times a week with Dilma Rousseff, was captured by the military.
32.
The officers suspected Dilma Rousseff and searched her, discovering that she was armed.
33.
Dilma Rousseff was considered a big enough catch that a military prosecutor labeled her the "Joan of Arc" of the guerrilla movement.
34.
Dilma Rousseff was taken to the OBAN headquarters, the same place where Vladimir Herzog would be tortured and killed five years later.
35.
Dilma Rousseff was allegedly tortured for 22 days by punching, ferule, and electric shock devices.
36.
Later, Dilma Rousseff denounced the torture she suffered in court proceedings, citing even the names of those who tortured her, such as Army Captain Benoni de Arruda Albernaz, mentioned by several other witnesses.
37.
Dilma Rousseff's name was on a list found at Carlos Lamarca's home, on a list of the prisoners who would get priority in exchange for hostages, but she was never exchanged and served out her sentence.
38.
Dilma Rousseff was convicted in the first instance to six years in prison.
39.
Dilma Rousseff had already served three years when the Supreme Military Court reduced her sentence to two years and a month.
40.
Dilma Rousseff had her political rights suspended for eighteen years.
41.
Dilma Rousseff requested compensation in the states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, since she was arrested in Sao Paulo but taken for interrogation in the cities of Juiz de Fora and Rio de Janeiro.
42.
However, as her advisors have declared, the indemnification has a symbolic value to her, and Dilma Rousseff demanded the requests be tried only after her departure from public office.
43.
Dilma Rousseff questioned the veracity of the file, claiming that it was a forged document, which led the newspaper to declare that it had not obtained the document from DOPS' file, but rather via e-mail and, thus, could not guarantee its veracity.
44.
Dilma Rousseff was ten kilograms thinner and had acquired thyroid disease.
45.
Dilma Rousseff spent some time recovering with family in Minas Gerais, visited an aunt in Sao Paulo, then moved to Porto Alegre, where Carlos Araujo was finishing the last months of his sentence.
46.
Dilma Rousseff stayed in her in-laws' house, from which they could see the prison where Araujo was held.
47.
Dilma Rousseff frequently visited her partner, bringing him newspapers and political books disguised as novels.
48.
Dilma Rousseff decided to attend a preparatory course in order to take the vestibular exam in economics at the Rio Grande do Sul Federal University.
49.
Dilma Rousseff was admitted to the university and graduated in 1977, this time not participating actively in the students' movement there.
50.
In November 1977, Rousseff was reported by the newspaper O Estado de S Paulo as one of the 97 "subversives" infiltrated in the public administration.
51.
Dilma Rousseff, characterized as a Colina and VAR Palmares militant "cohabitating with the subversive Carlos Araujo", was discharged from her job at the FEE, although she was later pardoned.
52.
In 1978, Dilma Rousseff attended the Campinas State University, with the intention of receiving a master's degree in economics.
53.
Dilma Rousseff declared that she "attended the master's degree program", but did not finish it, failing to present her thesis.
54.
Dilma Rousseff was twice enrolled in the graduate program in economics at the State University of Campinas, without ever fulfilling the requirements for those degrees.
55.
Dilma Rousseff and Araujo have a daughter named Paula Dilma Rousseff de Araujo born in 1976.
56.
Dilma Rousseff's website claims she is an avid reader, citing Machado de Assis, Guimaraes Rosa, Cecilia Meireles, and Adelia Prado as her favorite authors.
57.
Paula Dilma Rousseff married business administrator Rafael Covolo in Porto Alegre on 18 April 2008.
58.
At a press conference on 25 April 2009, Dilma Rousseff revealed that she was undergoing treatment to remove an early-stage axillar lymphoma, a cancer in the lymphatic system, which was detected in her left armpit during a routine mammogram.
59.
Dilma Rousseff began to wear a wig due to hair loss caused by the chemotherapy.
60.
Dilma Rousseff said it was still "full of holes", which was why she "couldn't take [the wig] off there in Copenhagen, Denmark".
61.
Dilma Rousseff has had an ambiguous stance on issues that involve privatization.
62.
In 2014, during the presidential elections, the president, Dilma Rousseff, supported the criminalization of homophobia, citing the "high rate" of acts of violence against homosexuals in the country.
63.
Dilma Rousseff was the party's candidate for Porto Alegre mayor twice, losing to Workers' Party members Olivio Dutra in 1988, and Tarso Genro in 1992.
64.
Dilma Rousseff got her second job in the mid-1980s as an adviser for the PDT members of the Rio Grande do Sul Legislative Assembly.
65.
Dilma Rousseff remained as Treasury Secretary until 1988, when she stepped out to dedicate herself in Araujo's campaign for mayor of Porto Alegre.
66.
Dilma Rousseff was replaced by Polibio Braga, which says that Rousseff persuaded him not to take office.
67.
In 1989 Dilma Rousseff was appointed director-general of the city council, but was dismissed by councilman Valdir Fraga, president of the local legislature, after arriving late for work.
68.
Dilma Rousseff remained in office until the end of 1993, when she was appointed Secretary of Energy and Communication through the influence of Carlos Araujo and his group.
69.
In 1995, after the end of Collares' term, Dilma Rousseff departed from her political office and returned to the FEE, where she was the editor of the magazine Economic Indicators.
70.
Dilma Rousseff defended the maintenance of the alliance which had elected Dutra, supporting Genro's candidacy, and claiming she would not accept "neoliberal alliances with the right-wing".
71.
Dilma Rousseff's critics said that she was being hypocritical, once she defended an alliance with Marchezan in the 1986 election.
72.
In January 1999, Dilma Rousseff traveled to Brasilia in order to alert the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration that if the authorities responsible for the power sector did not invest in generation and transmission of energy, the power cuts that Rio Grande do Sul faced early in her administration would take place in the rest of the country.
73.
The federal government did not grant it, and Dilma Rousseff had to compromise with the private sector.
74.
Pinguelli invited Dilma Rousseff to join the group meetings in June 2001, where she arrived as a shy participant in a team formed by several professors, but soon stood out with her objectivity and good knowledge of the area.
75.
Dilma Rousseff criticized the delay in the implementation of the new model, but said that this is the fault of the bureaucratic government machinery.
76.
Mauricio Tolmasquim, a member of the transition government which shared a vision of the energy sector similar to Dilma Rousseff's, was invited by her to be the executive secretary of the ministry.
77.
Dilma Rousseff stated that once they got to know each other better, Rousseff started shouting with him occasionally.
78.
Dilma Rousseff argued that it was unthinkable that a billion dollar building was not being made in Brazil.
79.
Dilma Rousseff argued that it was a social inclusion goal that should be a part of Fome Zero, and that it was not possible to assume that such a program would provide a financial return.
80.
Dilma Rousseff defended, then, a program heavily subsidized by the federal government, which should not only subsidize, but cover the costs for the universalization of electricity.
81.
In October 2008, Dilma Rousseff acknowledged that the government would not be able to fulfill its goal in time, leaving 100,000 households behind.
82.
Dilma Rousseff took office on 21 June 2005, becoming the first female to assume the position.
83.
Dilma Rousseff said to Carvalho that being appointed as chief of staff was a much bigger surprise for her than being appointed as Minister of Energy.
84.
On 13 June 2010, after more than two years of widespread speculation, Dilma Rousseff launched her campaign as the official presidential candidate for the Workers' Party in the 2010 presidential election.
85.
Dilma Rousseff's candidacy was supported by notable international figures, such as Puerto Rican actor Benicio del Toro, First Secretary of the French Socialist Party Martine Aubry, and American filmmaker Oliver Stone, who recorded a message on her behalf.
86.
Dilma Rousseff became the third female head of government ever in the history of Brazil, and the first de jure female head of state since the death of Maria I, Queen of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in 1816.
87.
Since her inauguration, Dilma Rousseff has received 21 letters from Bulgarian citizens.
88.
On 4 October 2011, President Dilma Rousseff visited Bulgaria for the first time ever for a state visit as well as for an emotional back-to-the-roots visit to the homeland of her late emigrant father.
89.
Dilma Rousseff paid a visit to the grave of her Bulgarian half-brother, Lyuben-Kamen Rusev, whom she never met and who died in 2007 at the age of 78.
90.
Dilma Rousseff was inaugurated as President of Brazil on 1 January 2011.
91.
Dilma Rousseff did not attend, as she held a reception at the Itamaraty Palace for foreign authorities attending her inauguration.
92.
On 17 December 2010, Dilma Rousseff received from the Supreme Electoral Court a diploma attesting her victory in the 2010 presidential election, becoming the first woman in the history of Brazil to receive it.
93.
Dilma Rousseff was unable to name all members of her cabinet until that ceremony, as she had desired.
94.
Dilma Rousseff completed the appointment of all 37 members of her cabinet on 22 December 2010.
95.
Since she took office, Dilma Rousseff has changed the members of her cabinet members four times.
96.
Dilma Rousseff has become the president which promoted the highest number of cabinet changes in the first six months of government.
97.
When she arrived at the presidential palace, Dilma Rousseff announced her desire to promote women.
98.
Dilma Rousseff maintained a majority approval rating throughout her first term.
99.
Dilma Rousseff's popularity is attributed to popular measures of her government, such as the reduction of the federal tax in the energy bill and the exemption of federal tax in the products of the consumer basket.
100.
The chain of events that ended with President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment was begun by the English lawyer Jonathan David Taylor.
101.
In 2013 Taylor blew the whistle on SBM Offshore NV, the Dutch company responsible for paying hundreds of millions of dollars to senior Petrobras personnel in bribes to win offshore oil and gas-related contracts, while Dilma Rousseff chaired the national oil and gas company.
102.
Dilma Rousseff's administration pushed to complete a number of hydroelectric dam projects in the Amazon River Basin, despite appeals from local residents of areas that would be affected, including indigenous tribes, and pressure from both domestic and international groups.
103.
However, President Dilma Rousseff had already recalled the Brazilian ambassador to the OAS, and furthermore withheld Brazil's annual contribution to the CIDH, approximately US$800,000.
104.
From 25 May 2012, Dilma Rousseff's government faced a number of strikes by public employees, especially university professors.
105.
Dilma Rousseff was ranked fourth in Forbes 2014 list of the most powerful women in the world, and the second most powerful in 2013.
106.
Dilma Rousseff was the third highest placed woman on the list, after Angela Merkel and Sonia Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress.
107.
Dilma Rousseff was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine on 26 September 2011.
108.
Dilma Rousseff was notified and under the Constitution of Brazil automatically suspended from the presidency pending a final decision of the Senate.
109.
Dilma Rousseff delivering her farewell address after being removed from office by the Senate, 31 August 2016.
110.
Dilma Rousseff was an interviewee for the 2019 documentary The Edge of Democracy.
111.
On 24 March 2023, Dilma Rousseff was elected as the president of the BRICS-led New Development Bank.