Brazil Votes for President with Bulgaria-Descended Dilma Rousseff in the Lead

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (R) accompanies presidencial candidate Dilma Rousseff (C) from the Brazilian Workers Party (PT), during a presidencial campaign event in Sao Bernardo do Campo, 02 Oct 2010 EPA/BGNES

Brazil is holding presidential elections Sunday, October 3, with Dilma Rousseff, the candidate of the Workers' Party (PT), who is of Bulgarian origin, clearly in the lead.

62-year-old Rousseff, personally selected and widely promoted by outgoing Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, is pitted against the former Governor of Sao Paulo State, Jose Serra, from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party.

There are a total of nine candidates for the presidency of Brazil, with other frontrunners including Marina Silva from the Green Party and Plinio de Arruda Sampaio from the Socialism and Freedom Party.

According to the latest public opinion poll results released Saturday, Dilma Rousseff has a decisive lead of 52% vs. 31% for Serra. Her popularity is reported to have declined slightly after peaking at 57% two weeks ago, as a result of a corruption scandal with her successor at the position as Chief of Staff of President Lula da Silva.

Analysts believe the major intrigue is if Rousseff win grab hold of the Brazilian presidency in the first round, or if Serra will make it to a run-off.

Rousseff, who has never held an elected office before, has herself acknowledged that her popularity is primarily the result of her promotion by extremely popular president Lula da Silva, whose two terms in office turned Brazil into a world-scale economic powerhouse.

Brazil now has the world's eighth largest economy, which has grown 7% a year on the back of a commodities boom and market-friendly policies, with some 20 million Brazilians lifted out of poverty.

Until she was tapped by Lula da Silva, Rousseff was the president's little-known Energy Minister and, later, his Chief of Staff. She is also known for being a former Marxist guerrilla, surviving torture in the hands of the military dictatorship in Brazil more than three decades ago.

Rousseff's father, Petar Rusev, also know as Pedro Rousseff, was a Bulgarian leftist who emigrated to France in 1929, and then left for Latin America in the 1930s.

On Sunday, Brazil is also voting for members of the legislature and governors.

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