Americas Features

INTERVIEW: Rousseff to insist on Lula's 'new idea of geopolitics'

By Diana Renee Sep 30, 2010, 15:07 GMT

Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (C-L) and Workers\' Party presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff (2-R) greet the crowd during the party\'s last rally prior to the elections at the Samba track in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 27 September 2010. EPA/SEBASTIAO MOREIRA

Rio de Janeiro, - Dilma Rousseff, the clear favourite to succeed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as Brazilian president, plans to build on her mentor's undoubted foreign policy achievements, including the focus on South-South diplomacy.

'Brazil's new political relationship with the world is very important. We have done much more than just diversify trade partners,' she told the German Press Agency dpa in an email interview.

'We have broadened and diversified relations with strategic thinking, with a new idea of geopolitics. A new perception of relations with emerging countries, like China, India, South Africa or Russia. That was how Brazil secured the place it now holds in the world.'

The leftist Rousseff, 62, who had guerrilla training in her youth, is the favourite to win Sunday's presidential election in Brazil and could win outright in Sunday's first round of voting.

According to an opinion poll issued Wednesday by the private Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics (IBOPE), Rousseff has 55-per-cent support, with social democrat Jose Serra at distant second at 27 per cent.

Rousseff, Lula's hand-picked successor, said she will keep 'a proud and independent foreign policy, oriented to the defence of Brazilian interests and to the construction of dialogue, of peace and of a harmonic coexistence among nations.'

She told dpa that, if elected, Brazil will insist on South-South diplomacy without distancing itself from northern giants like the United States, the European Union and Japan.

'The key words for relations between Brazil, the United States and the European Union are mutual respect and cooperation,' she said.

Rousseff said she will seek 'convergence' in her foreign relations, but stressed that she will not give up 'independence, sovereignty, freedom of action.'

'Our diplomacy will remain non-excluding, in the sense that we will seek to strengthen or create associations based on concrete interests,' she said.

Rousseff stood by Lula, whom she served as minister for mining and energy and also as chief of staff, in the decision to keep friendly ties with fire-brand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

'The Lula government insisted on trying to build peace,' she noted.

'What we want for Iran is the same we want for ourselves: the use of nuclear technology for peaceful ends. And it was at the request even of Western governments that we proposed dialogue with the Iranian government.'

Rousseff said she will build on South American relations too, seeking further 'physical, energy-related, productive, social and political integration' in the region.

'The results (of Lula's government) show that this order of priorities has been right.'

Brazil wants to reinforce its global presence, she stressed.

'It is essential for Brazil to transmit to the world the example of a people who knew how to build the necessary change in an atmosphere of peace and democracy,' Rousseff said.

'In order to overcome our historic challenges, we needed to grow, to distribute income, to eliminate social exclusion, to reduce our external vulnerability, to achieve macroeconomic stability and to deepen our democracy.'

Internally, she said Brazil should persist in the use of clean sources of energy despite the discovery of huge oil and gas reserves off its shores.

'Brazil must keep up its clean energy matrix, with an increase in the share of renewable sources of energy,' Rousseff said.