Berliner Boersenzeitung - Brazil's Rousseff: from insurgent to impeachment

EUR -
AED 4.26841
AFN 80.362394
ALL 97.542216
AMD 446.735356
ANG 2.080099
AOA 1065.794205
ARS 1481.767207
AUD 1.776887
AWG 2.092071
AZN 1.980459
BAM 1.954642
BBD 2.348809
BDT 141.226338
BGN 1.956132
BHD 0.43834
BIF 3466.946195
BMD 1.162261
BND 1.493215
BOB 8.038238
BRL 6.486005
BSD 1.163311
BTN 100.147673
BWP 15.618748
BYN 3.807045
BYR 22780.325028
BZD 2.336716
CAD 1.596076
CDF 3354.287055
CHF 0.932981
CLF 0.029194
CLP 1120.296341
CNY 8.342655
CNH 8.346165
COP 4674.330945
CRC 587.052233
CUC 1.162261
CUP 30.799929
CVE 110.199718
CZK 24.634179
DJF 206.947405
DKK 7.463699
DOP 70.258379
DZD 151.514244
EGP 57.439973
ERN 17.433922
ETB 161.636047
FJD 2.620788
FKP 0.864949
GBP 0.86668
GEL 3.150183
GGP 0.864949
GHS 12.127816
GIP 0.864949
GMD 83.106172
GNF 10094.020343
GTQ 8.931709
GYD 243.385819
HKD 9.121487
HNL 30.445964
HRK 7.532663
HTG 152.739518
HUF 398.923459
IDR 18977.696027
ILS 3.908598
IMP 0.864949
INR 100.127437
IQD 1523.897249
IRR 48945.741055
ISK 142.354235
JEP 0.864949
JMD 186.029797
JOD 0.824089
JPY 172.932309
KES 150.300962
KGS 101.640213
KHR 4662.238109
KMF 491.989694
KPW 1046.046309
KRW 1616.942576
KWD 0.355234
KYD 0.969426
KZT 620.152624
LAK 25087.138481
LBP 104232.653
LKR 350.972086
LRD 233.241828
LSL 20.596898
LTL 3.431856
LVL 0.703041
LYD 6.327252
MAD 10.519168
MDL 19.788278
MGA 5176.933206
MKD 61.523554
MMK 2439.678938
MNT 4168.013035
MOP 9.404829
MRU 46.275587
MUR 53.119698
MVR 17.903172
MWK 2017.205016
MXN 21.777182
MYR 4.935007
MZN 74.338683
NAD 20.596898
NGN 1779.387897
NIO 42.814637
NOK 11.838157
NPR 160.236077
NZD 1.94976
OMR 0.446995
PAB 1.163311
PEN 4.140847
PGK 4.817146
PHP 66.377189
PKR 331.310933
PLN 4.244785
PYG 9003.666265
QAR 4.229694
RON 5.072695
RSD 117.080642
RUB 91.375869
RWF 1681.00418
SAR 4.36165
SBD 9.64543
SCR 17.082281
SDG 697.942292
SEK 11.245095
SGD 1.492813
SHP 0.913355
SLE 26.62005
SLL 24372.046713
SOS 664.806172
SRD 43.245469
STD 24056.466061
STN 24.485495
SVC 10.17897
SYP 15112.803405
SZL 20.592801
THB 37.628259
TJS 11.196867
TMT 4.079538
TND 3.419874
TOP 2.722137
TRY 46.947496
TTD 7.897322
TWD 34.181766
TZS 3030.404801
UAH 48.58252
UGX 4168.530579
USD 1.162261
UYU 46.882227
UZS 14725.276806
VES 135.943958
VND 30404.760344
VUV 138.92149
WST 3.080055
XAF 655.568644
XAG 0.030448
XAU 0.000347
XCD 3.14107
XCG 2.096558
XDR 0.815317
XOF 655.568644
XPF 119.331742
YER 280.163552
ZAR 20.586499
ZMK 10461.752209
ZMW 26.785133
ZWL 374.247723
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

Advertisement Image
Brazil's Rousseff: from insurgent to impeachment
Brazil's Rousseff: from insurgent to impeachment

Brazil's Rousseff: from insurgent to impeachment

Dilma Rousseff survived torture as a guerrilla opposing Brazil's military dictatorship. Four decades later, as president, she's fighting for her political survival.

Advertisement Image

Text size:

After those dark days in the 1970s, when Rousseff belonged to a violent Marxist underground group, she rose to become Brazil's first female president.

Less than a year into her second term, though, she faces being suspended from office this week for an impeachment trial in the Senate on charges that her government took unauthorized loans to cover budget holes during her tight reelection in 2014.

Brazil's 68-year-old "Iron Lady" calls the impeachment a coup and promises "to resist to the very end."

But the collapse of her ruling coalition and open war with her vice president Michel Temer, who will take over if she is suspended this week, has left Rousseff on the ropes.

Although many analysts agree that the seriousness of the charges against her is debatable, a tide of public anger over prolonged recession, corruption and the government's inability to deal with Congress could sweep her away.

But as Rousseff herself has pointed out, torture steeled her for tough times.

"I have come up against hugely difficult situations in my life, including attacks which took me to the limit physically," she said. "Nothing knocked me off my stride."

- Bicycle president -

Rousseff came to power in a 2010 election as the handpicked Workers' Party candidate to succeed hugely popular Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the leftwing party's founder.

Whether as Lula's chief of staff or energy minister, she won a reputation for laser-like attention to detail -- a talent she is said to have carried over into her own cabinet meetings.

"She came here with her little computer," Lula said after appointing Rousseff to her first cabinet post. "She started to talk and I felt something different in her."

The flip side is that Rousseff is not seen as a natural politician, with little common touch and a brusque manner that did not go down well when it came to wheeling and dealing in Brasilia.

But supporters say that the leader commonly referred to as just Dilma is good company.

"People always say about women in power that they're hard, managerial. But Dilma is a person with a great sense of humor, fun, extremely caring and generous," said Ieda Akselrud de Seixas, who was jailed with Rousseff in the 1970s.

At Lula's prompting during her reelection campaign, Rousseff opened up, once confessing to escaping the presidential palace on the back of a friend's Harley-Davidson and cruising through the streets of Brasilia incognito. She is a keen bicycle rider too and frequently photographed taking exercise, even at the height of the current crisis.

Rousseff also tapped into a national obsession with cosmetic surgery, getting her teeth whitened, hair redone and lifting wrinkles from her face.

The relatively fresh look was in contrast to the visible toll exacted during her successful battle against lymphatic cancer that was first diagnosed in 2009. At one point, she wore a wig to hide hair loss from chemotherapy.

She has since made a complete recovery, doctors say.

Twice married, Rousseff has a daughter, Paula, from a three-decade relationship with her ex-husband, fellow leftist militant Carlos de Araujo.

- 'Subversion' -

Born December 14, 1947 to a Brazilian mother and Bulgarian businessman father, Rousseff grew up comfortably middle-class in the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte.

She cut her political teeth as a Marxist militant opposed to the 1964-1985 dictatorship and in January 1970 was arrested and sentenced to prison on grounds she belonged to a group responsible for murders and bank robberies.

Rousseff's exploits during her time in the Revolutionary Armed Vanguard Palmares group remain shrouded in rumor. But most reports agree that she played more of a support role than taking part in violence.

The judge who found her guilty dubbed her the "high priestess of subversion," journalist Ricardo Amaral wrote in a biography. A photo in the book shows a bespectacled Rousseff aged just 22 staring defiantly at the court.

After nearly three years behind bars, during which she says she was subjected to repeated bouts of torture, including electric shocks, Rousseff was released at the end of 1972.

- Petrobras: the slippery slope -

She helped found the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) in 1979 and eventually switched to Lula's Workers' Party in 2000. From there, she made rapid progress into the country's upper echelons.

When Lula was first elected president in 2003, he named Rousseff his energy minister and then, in 2005, his cabinet chief.

As chairwoman of oil giant Petrobras from 2003 to 2010, Rousseff was at the helm of the country's biggest corporation -- a record that has come back to haunt her with the revelation of a massive embezzlement scheme at the company.

Lula and many other senior Workers' Party members, as well as opponents, have been probed or in some cases already prosecuted over allegations of money laundering, embezzlement or bribe taking.

Rousseff herself is being investigated for alleged obstruction of justice. Unlike many of her peers, however, she has not been accused of seeking to enrich herself personally.

(L.Kaufmann--BBZ)

Advertisement Image