Brazil's Dilma Rousseff 4th Woman Elected President in South America

Dilma Rousseff (C) greets supporters during her victory meeting in Brasilia, Brazil, 31 October 2010. EPA/BGNES

Brazil's new President, Bulgaria-descended Dilma Rousseff, is the fourth woman to become president of a South American country.

After she won the runoff of the Brazilian presidential elections, Dilma Rousseff joined the ranks of other women presidents of South American countries: Isabel Peron of Argentina (who was the world's first woman president) who took office in 1974; Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile, who took office in 2006; and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, still acting president of Argentina, who took office in 2007.

If Central American and Caribbean nations are also counted with Violeta Chamorro, president of Nicaragua – 1990; Ertha Pascal Trouillot, interim president of Haiti – 1990; Mireya Moscoso, president of Panama – 1999; Laura Chinchilla - president of Costa Rica, 2010, Dilma Rousseff is the ninth woman elected president of a Latin American nation.

Dilma Rousseff is also the 57th woman in the world to become the president or prime minister of a sovereign nation.

"My nomination suggests that we are increasingly turning our backs to discrimination. I will continue with greater power and persistence the struggle against this detrimental phenomenon. It has no place in Brazil or anywhere else in the world," Rousseff told the Bulgarian paper 24 Chasa Daily in an interview in September 2010.

A recent article of The Independent said that Dilma Rousseff will become the most influential woman in the world if elected President of Brazil.

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