Brazil Elects its First Female President

The first woman elected to preside over Latin America’s biggest country, Dilma Rousseff, won on Sunday, October 31st, with 56% of the votes. This outcome comes as no surprise, as polls had shown Rousseff leading over the opposition for the past couple of weeks.

According to The Economist, Brazilians chose continuity over experience:

 Her entire political life had been behind the scenes. Little was known of either her politics or her personality. Mr Serra was vastly more experienced and better known. But Lula campaigned beside Ms Rousseff, toured the country with her and was at least as visible in her television advertising as she was.

The Guardian also reports that voters were willing to look past her lack of political experience.

 If it were only about experience I would never vote for her,” said Denilson Quintino, 43, an electrician. “But she has a good team behind her. Today the country is much better off because of the Lula government. He did more for me than any other president”.

But despite Brazil’s massive growth, Rousseff inherits a set of very different economic challenges than when Lula took office back in 2003. However, the president-elect pledged to focus on poverty eradication and that certainly falls under the ‘continuity’ category.

In light of the election, The Wall Street Journal, celebrates the succesess of this Latin American giant, but highlights that the nation still has a long way to go.

 "This has been a two-decade process from a dire start to a new level of prosperity," said José Sheinkman, a Brazilian-born economist at Princeton University who occasionally served as a sounding board for policy makers during Mr. da Silva's first term. The challenge for the new government is figuring out the next steps.