Brazil Elects First Woman President

Dilma Rousseff takes 56% in runoff vote
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 1, 2010 6:57 AM CDT
Brazil Elects First Woman President
Supporters of Brazil's President-elect Dilma Rousseff wait for her during the victory rally in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday Oct. 31, 2010.   (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Brazil has elected its first woman president: Dilma Rousseff took the top slot after yesterday’s runoff election. The former energy secretary and chief of staff to president Luiz Inácio da Silva declared in her victory speech that her “mission is to eradicate poverty,” CNN reports. A left-wing fighter under Brazil’s 1960s military dictatorship, Rousseff beat centrist José Serra, a former governor of Sao Paulo and health minister; she took 56% of the vote, the AP notes.

“I hope the fathers and mothers of little girls will look at them and say yes, women can,” Rousseff said.
(More Dilma Rousseff stories.)

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