PROFILE: Former exile Serra gets past first hurdle in Brazil

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

Rio de Janeiro - The social democrat Jose Serra got a small triumph even in defeat in Sunday's presidential election in Brazil.

While he, as expected, came second to ruling-party candidate Dilma Rousseff, he managed to hold her to a runoff on October 31. As he cast his ballot, he said he hoped to make it to a runoff 'for Brazil's sake.'

This is Serra's second bid for the Presidency, eight years after losing to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2002, when he was the ruling-party candidate trying to succeed president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003).

Now, at age 68, the candidate of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) represents the only major opposition to a government which is the most popular in Brazil's history, with a popularity rating of around 80 per cent.

Serra was one of the loudest voices to oppose the 1964-85 military dictatorship. After the return of democracy in 1985, he built a reputation as a good manager as federal health minister and governor of the wealthy state of Sao Paulo.

Serra, the son of an Italian immigrant and fruit seller, became politically active at 20, serving as president of the National Union of Students and helping to launch the leftist-Catholic Popular Action organization.

He fled to Bolivia after the 1964 military coup, and eventually completed his economics studies in Chile and worked at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Chile's military coup in 1973 sent him packing to the United States, where he received his doctorate from Cornell University.

Back in Brazil in 1977, Serra joined the only opposition party tolerated by the military authorities, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), and later joined the more liberal PSDB. He has held state and federal elected and appointed office and resigned from the Cardoso government over its austere monetary policies.

Returning as health minister in 1998, Serra encouraged the production of generic medication and organized the free distribution of drugs to those suffering from the effects of HIV, putting Brazil on the international health radar.

In 2004, Serra was elected mayor of Sao Paulo, and two years later became governor of the powerful state of Sao Paulo.

In his bid for the presidency, Serra led opinion polls for months, before losing ground to Lula's candidate.

Under his campaign motto 'Brazil can do more,' Serra has promised to broaden Lula's social policies and carry out major investment to improve public education and boost industrial production.