Dilma Rousseff - a Brazilian economist and politician of Bulgarian origin - might become the next President of the largest South American country.

Rouseff, who is presently the Chief of Staff of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil, was endorsed Friday by Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

In an interview for the Italian newspaper Republica, Lula da Silva declared he would like to see a woman become Brazil's next President, and that he was going to support Rousseff for the nomination of his Workers' Party.

Dilma Vana Rousseff was born in 1947 in the city of Belo Horizonte. She is the daughter of the Bulgarian-Brazilian lawyer and businessman Pedro Rousseff, who was born as Petar Rusev.

Petar Rusev was involved with Bulgaria's Communist Party in 1920s, and in 1929 left Bulgaria for France as a political Г©migrГ©. After the end of World War II, he immigrated to Argentina, and then to Brazil, where he married and became a construction entrepreneur. He died of a heart attack in 1962.

Dilma Rousseff herself has been involved with leftist organizations since her youth. After the 1964 rightist coup in Brazil, Rousseff founded and led a leftist underground organization called Palmares, and joined the resistance movement against the military dictatorship.

Later she was captured by the political police, and was sent to prison for three years - between 1970 and 1973, where she was severely tortured.

After she was freed, Dilma Rousseff studied economics, and now holds a Ph. D. in this field. In 2003 she was appointed Energy Minister of Brazil by President Lula da Silva.

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