Brazil’s New Leader Begins in Shadow of Predecessor
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: December 31, 2010
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — When Dilma Rousseff assumes the presidency of Brazil on Saturday, she will do so at a time when her country is thriving economically and full of swagger, eager to flex more of its newfound wealth and influence at home and abroad.
Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
Dilma Rousseff with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at a Christmas celebration on Dec. 23.
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Times Topics: Dilma Rousseff | Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva | Brazil
But Ms. Rousseff, the first woman to be elected president of Latin America’s biggest country, will have especially big shoes to fill, having to succeed the nation’s most popular leader in history, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
While Ms. Rousseff has been eager to show that she is not a political puppet of Mr. da Silva, analysts say the challenge before her is one that her predecessor managed fairly well: balancing an ambitious domestic agenda with securing Brazil’s global position.
Since being elected in October, Ms. Rousseff has mostly reassured investors that she is not looking to steer the country further to the left than under Mr. da Silva, who faced those same concerns when he was elected in 2002, before he adopted a pragmatic approach.
“As Lula’s handpicked successor, Dilma will have to deal with high expectations for continued gains,” said Michael Shifter, president of the policy research and advocacy group Inter-American Dialogue. “Her appointments, decisions and comments to date have been reassuring for those who were nervous that she would be tempted to pursue a radically different course from Lula.”
While many expect her to mostly follow the economic course paved by Mr. da Silva, she has already signaled that she will adopt a tougher stance on some issues, including Iran, a subject that deeply divided Brazil and the United States last year.
On his final day in office, Mr. da Silva left his successor with a still brewing international dispute to grapple with. On Friday, Mr. da Silva decided not to extradite a former Italian guerrilla, Cesare Battisti, despite a decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2009 that he should be extradited to Italy on murder convictions in Italy from the 1970s.
“I consider this situation is anything but closed,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy said in a statement on Friday.
Strong-willed and short-tempered, Ms. Rousseff, 63, is viewed as more of an ideologue than Mr. da Silva, for whom she worked as chief of staff. She favors more state control over industries, including Brazil’s rapidly expanding oil sector. But she also has a reputation as a pragmatic deal maker.
She will have the support of two-thirds of Congress, and analysts see Mr. da Silva working behind the scenes with the leaders of the 10 parties that form her presidential coalition.
Ms. Rousseff filled about half of her 37-member cabinet with ministers already serving under Mr. da Silva, including Finance Minister Guido Mantega. She appointed some well-respected professionals for other key posts.
Ms. Rousseff takes over at a time when Brazil is still in the midst of a domestic consumption boom and has record-low unemployment of 5.7 percent. The economy is projected to grow by 4.5 percent in 2011.
She inherits a country that is in significantly better economic shape than the one Mr. da Silva took over in 2003. By expanding cash-transfer programs for the poor, subsidizing housing loans and raising the minimum wage, his government pulled more than 20 million people out of poverty. The middle class has grown by 29 million people since 2002.
The country, which received a record $30 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund when it was close to economic collapse in 2002, now lends money to the I.M.F.
“When President Lula came to office, Brazil was a regional power with global ambitions,” said Thomas A. Shannon Jr., the American ambassador to Brazil. “Today, Brazil is an aspiring global power with regional interests and international responsibilities. That is a significant change from eight years ago.”
Global ambitions led Mr. da Silva and the departing foreign minister, Celso Amorim, to try to broker a compromise on Iran’s nuclear program. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton discounted the deal that Brazil and Turkey had brokered as a “ploy” by Iran to delay sanctions, and friction worsened when Brazil voted against the sanctions sought by the United States at the United Nations Security Council.
Antôniode Aguiar Patriota, who served as ambassador to Washington under Mr. da Silva, will be charged as Ms. Rousseff’s new foreign minister with rebuilding mutual trust between the countries, “which was badly damaged by the Iranian episode,” said Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Mr. Shannon said the countries had put the issue behind them. “We got the resolution we wanted, and the Brazilians have committed themselves to implementing that resolution, so that’s it,” he said.
Still, Ms. Rousseff declined an invitation by President Obama to visit the White House before her inauguration, saying she was too occupied with forming her new government, but hoped to visit soon. Mrs. Clinton is scheduled to attend Saturday’s inauguration in BrasÃlia.
Mr. Shannon said Ms. Rousseff’s recent comments in The Washington Post were reassuring on the question of human rights, an area where the da Silva government drew criticism from Washington and which Ms. Rousseff feels deeply about, having been brutally tortured during Brazil’s dictatorship.
She said in the Washington Post interview that Brazil’s abstention in a recent United Nations vote condemning stoning as a method of execution was “an error,” and she signaled her misgivings, shared by many Brazilians, about Mr. da Silva’s failed Iran mediation effort.
“She differentiated herself rapidly with respect to Iran,” said Julia Sweig, director of the Global Brazil Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations.
On the domestic front, Brazil faces significant challenges in infrastructure development, education and health, as well as with regulatory and tax barriers that are limiting high-end economic growth, analysts said. Ms. Rousseff has said her principal goal is to fight poverty, and she also will oversee the preparations for the 2014 World Cup and for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janiero.
Mr. da Silva, the 65-year-old former metalworker with a fourth-grade education, leaves office with an approval rating of more than an 80 percent.
In his final days, Mr. da Silva sent some parting shots to the United States, saying American policies toward Latin America had changed “little or not at all” since Mr. Obama took office. And he seemed to express personal satisfaction about the American economic crisis. Mr. Shannon declined to comment on the statements.
Still, in his waning hours in office Mr. da Silva was able to inspire Brazilians in a way that Ms. Rousseff will be hard-pressed to duplicate. In his final nationally televised address last week, he underscored what many analysts see as his singular accomplishment.
“Today, all Brazilian men and women believe more in their country and themselves,” he said. “This is a shared victory for all of us.”
