PROFILE: Former guerrilla Dilma Rousseff, Lula's designated heir

By Diana Renee Oct 4, 2010, 10:50 GMT

Rio de Janeiro - Dilma Rousseff, 62, a long-time left-wing activist who trained as a guerrilla in her youth, won Sunday's presidential election in Brazil but fell short of the majority of votes.

She faces a runoff against social democrat Jose Serra on October 31. The outcome was similar to the runoffs won by her mentor, the popular outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in 2002 and 2006.

Still, Rousseff still appears the clear favourite to become Brazil's first-ever woman president.

The candidate of Lula's Workers' Party (PT), Rousseff is a veteran of politics even if Sunday's presidential election marked the first time she stood for office.

Lula, barred from serving more than two consecutive terms, actively campaigned for his one-time chief of staff - a decision which was not universally greeted. Critics denounced her for lack of political experience and history in the party itself.

Few expect her to deviate from Lula's path, which has brought Brazil onto the world stage and into a thriving economy.

'My proposal is to continue the policies of the Lula government and to build on them,' Rousseff says.

Serra and other prominent opposition figures in Brazil have accused Rousseff of being a mere puppet and having 'no ideas.'

The daughter of a Bulgarian-born poet-businessman and a Brazilian schoolteacher, Rousseff left her strict Catholic schooling behind when she joined a Marxist group at 17, during the heavy years of the Brazilian military dictatorship.

Radical guerrilla training followed with the Command of National Liberation, attracting the attention of the political police. She went underground in 1969, was captured, tortured and held prisoner for two years.

She was resilient when released, pursuing her economics degree in 1977 from Rio Grande do Sul Federal University and re-entering the world of politics again - this time with the Democratic Workers' Party (PDT). Using her political and managerial skills, she rose to serve several offices as provincial minister in the fields of finance, energy, mining and communications in Rio Grande do Sul in the '80s and '90s.

Soon after joining the PT in 2001, she met Lula at a meeting with energy sector experts and was named his energy minister when he took office in 2003, putting her in charge of one of the most vital economic sectors of the South American country, which is energy self-sufficient through the combined use of biofuels and fossil fuels.

Rousseff is tough - she survived lymphatic cancer last year - but an eventual victory would be followed by the challenge of the power struggle among PT factions and between the party and its allies, including the powerful centrist Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement.

She has one child, Paula, born to fellow activist and lawyer Carlos Araujo.