Dilma Rousseff, who is of Bulgarian origin and has been showered with round-the-clock attention by the local media, has scrapped twice plans to come to the native country of her father, 24 Hours daily reported, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.

Rousseff planned to come for the first time to Bulgaria in 2005 in her capacity of Energy Minister of her country and at the invitation of the then Bulgarian Energy Minister Milko Kovachev. Dilma also had the desire to meet her brother Lyuben-Kamen, who is a son of her father from his first marriage.

The preparations for the trip to Bulgaria were in full swing when in June 2005 Rousseff was appointed Lula da Silva's chief of staff. The responsibilities that the post brought forced her to delay her plans.

They were revived in 2008, when Rousseff accompanied President Lula da Silva during his European tour and wanted to depart for Bulgaria on her own at the end of it. Several weeks earlier however her brother Lyuben-Kamen died and Dilma once again had to put her plans on hold.

Dilma Rousseff decided on her own to help financially her ailing Bulgarian half-brother in 2006. Lyuben Rusev, a successful Bulgarian engineer who by that time was a childless and ailing old man living in Sofia with his wife, received a certain sum of money from his sister in Brazil without having requested it.

Bulgarian diplomats in Brazil helped Lyuben Rusev by translating into Portuguese letters to his sister Dilma, who by that time had become part of the Cabinet of Brazil's President Lula da Silva.

The new Brazilian president has reportedly confirmed that she will keep her promise to visit her father's homeland Bulgaria in the summer of 2011.

"She promised to visit the country, probably in the next European summer," Marco Aurelio Garcia told journalists after Dilma Rousseff received as a guest Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov last Thursday.

Dilma Rousseff won a "landslide" Bulgarian vote even before being elected president of Brazil - the country was gripped by a "Dilma fever" because of her Bulgarian roots.

Bulgarian media continue to shower a round-the-clock attention on Ms Rousseff, highlighting primarily the fact that she is a Bulgarian descendent.

The citizens of Gabrovo, a hard-luck but endearing Bulgarian town at the foot of the central Balkans, where the father of Brazil newly elected president Dilma Rousseff was born, are more than happy to celebrate their newfound notoriety across the Atlantic.

Dilma Rousseff's father, Peter Rousev, was born in 1900 in the town of Gabrovo, but left Bulgaria for both economic and political reasons (he was a communist), looking for a better job and a brighter future. He eventually married a Brazilian schoolteacher, the president-elect's mother, and became a relatively wealthy man.

A century later the small town in central Bulgaria has been caught up in the excitement of the presidential victory in far-away Brazil and hopes Dilma Rousseff will visit Gabrovo as President of one of the world's greatest nations and recover her roots.

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