By Luisita Lopez Torregrosa

The New York Times

Latin America is no stranger to female leaders, but not many can match the radical political trajectory of Dilma Rousseff, the 62-year-old onetime Marxist guerrilla leader who stands to become Brazil's first female president.

For Ms. Rousseff, a twice-divorced economist, to become Brazil's president — either by winning outright in elections on Sunday, or in a later runoff — would be historic enough. What's more, she would rule a country with the eighth-largest economy in the world, the wealthiest in Latin America.

Brazil has always been an exotic playground whose politics regularly feature corruption, violence and upheaval. But it is now a player in the world arena. It is a global power.

Up until a year or so ago, Ms. Rousseff, the former chief of staff of President Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva, had worked mostly behind the scenes, by most accounts an effective and respected civil servant in the shadow of the popular president universally known as Lula. Forbidden by law to run for a third term, Mr. da Silva tapped Ms. Rousseff, cast his aura around her and became her loudest and most passionate cheerleader.

Underrated in the mostly male world of Brazil's electoral politics, Ms. Rousseff took off slowly last year, mostly because she was undergoing treatment for lymphoma. She went on the campaign trail in full force in the spring and moved past her main opponent, the ex-governor of S?o Paulo, Jos? Serra, who lost to Mr. da Silva in the race for president in 2002.

Ms. Rousseff had a mostly smooth ride until earlier this month, when local media reported allegations that the family of a former aide, Erenice Guerra, who succeeded her as chief of staff, was taking bribes to procure government contracts for businesses. Ms. Rousseff was not mentioned in the allegations; she has since wobbled somewhat in the polls but is still widely predicted to best Mr. Serra.

If she has a theme, it is her allegiance to Mr. da Silva's policies. "I'm proud to be associated with the government of President Lula because we showed that distribution of income was a necessary condition to make Brazil independent and achieve stability," she said last week during a televised debate in Brasilia. She emphasized that Brazil — sitting among other things on new oil fields discovered off its coast — no longer needed foreign assistance to meet external obligations.

Victory would place Ms. Rousseff in a gallery of female leaders in Latin America, most of them — like their counterparts in Western Europe or the United States — offspring of relatively privileged and educated families (unlike Lula himself, who rose from poverty to pinnacle). Among these successful Latin American ladies is Michelle Bachelet, 59, the first female president of Chile, single mother of three and pediatrician, who survived prison torture, exile and the Pinochet regime to win the presidency in 2006. She served through March of this year.

She made headlines in recent days with the announcement that she would head a new United Nations agency called U.N. Women. "Women are almost invisible in some places," Ms. Bachelet said at the United Nations last Thursday. "They are second-class citizens. They are seen as people without rights. It is a shame for humanity."

While Ms. Bachelet broke down barriers for women, Cristina Fern?ndez de Kirchner, 57, president of Argentina and wife of former President N?stor Kirchner, has battled for gay rights, successfully supporting same-sex marriage. Ms. Fern?ndez, a Peronista like her husband, can seem somewhat erratic, plying unorthodox economic policies, thumbing her nose at world lenders like the International Monetary Fund and having few financial ties to the world. But Argentina's economy is booming, her approval ratings are improving and she may win a second term next year.

In Peru, Keiko Fujimori, the 35-year-old daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, supports the capitalist-oriented framework that has bolstered Peru's economy. Although her father is in jail, a poll taken in late September showed Ms. Fujimori leading three potential opponents — all men — in the presidential election set for next spring.

The pragmatic economic policy of Brazil, which Ms. Rousseff has stoked in nearly 10 years in the da Silva administration, has helped vault her toward the presidency. She has said that Brazil can keep growing at a 7 percent annual rate, that she will create millions of jobs, improve infrastructure and use Brazil's new wealth to support social-welfare plans and market-friendly policies.

Such capitalist talk seems far from the days when Ms. Rousseff's nom de guerre was Stella, and she handled weapons and commanded male comrades. For her role in the armed underground resistance to the military dictatorship of the 1960s and '70s, she served three years in prison, where she was repeatedly tortured.

Ms. Rousseff grew up in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais. Her father, Pedro Rousseff, who died in 1962, was born Petar Russev in Bulgaria; her mother, Dilma Jane Silva, was the daughter of ranchers. Young Dilma attended Catholic boarding schools, studied piano and French. But her structured life changed when she went to public school and discovered the underground movement. It was 1965, and she was 17.

In a few years, she joined the underground, got married, imposed herself among men, divorced her husband, married another and gave birth to a daughter, her only child (she has since divorced her second husband).

Out of prison, she left the underground and went to college. When democracy was restored in the mid-1980s, she had an economics degree and soon became energy secretary in Rio Grande do Sul. When Mr. da Silva was elected president she became his energy secretary, and later, chief of staff.

Analysts credit her surge in part to Brazil's high-paced economy and expanded aid for low-income families. But more than any other factor (including the female one), Ms. Rousseff owes her success to Mr. da Silva, who has said, "She won't only carry on my legacy but perfect it and do much more."

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