MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian press name President Dilma Rousseff “Woman of the Year”

Student Rousseff, 22, sitting before a military court

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was elected “Woman of the Year” by one of Brazil’s leading magazines, Istoé, which describes the leader as “one of the most influential persons in the world” who also conducted the country to “a superior level”.

Rousseff who next January first will celebrate her first year in office has put Brazil “as the guest who is received with a red carpet: she has something to say and she is listened to”, points out the magazine.

Internationally the President has imposed her own mark of government: “intransigent in the defence of public financial resources and in the search of policies that ensure growth with income distribution. It’s not a minor achievement for a government that is only beginning”.

The 63-year old President is also described as the “(woman) warrior who confronted the dictatorship in the name of democratic values”.

The nomination which was made public on the Istoé Saturday edition coincides with the release by the Brazilian press of a picture of Dilma Rousseff in 1970, sitting before a military tribunal.

The photo dates November 1970 when student Rousseff was 22, shows the president with short hair and extremely thin, sitting before two military officers acting as judges and with their faces covered.

The image is an advance of another magazine, ‘Epoca’ which is promoting a book to be launched at the end of the year “Life needs courage” written by journalist Ricardo Amaral and which is a non-official biography of the first woman elected president of Brazil.

Rousseff was arrested in 1970 and for almost three years was a political prisoner from the military dictatorship of the time having been a member of the armed resistance group, Vanguardia Armada Revolucionaria-Palmares.

Allegedly she was tortured during 22 days following her arrest and then taken before the military court in Rio do Janeiro.

Other Brazilian political figures who were distinguished with awards includes the Mayor of Sao Paulo City, Gilberto Kassab, named the “Brazilian politician of the year”; Rio do Janeiro chief of Security, Jose Mariano Beltrame, “Brazilian citizen of the year”: Antonio Candido as the Brazilian man of culture and Anderson Silva in sports.