In the 1960s, during the military dictatorship, Dilma Rousseff, 61, participated in the armed struggle against the dictatorship, operating in clandestine and terrorist organizations.

She was tortured by the military between 1970 and 1973 in the bodies of public prosecution who persecuted, tortured and killed communists and socialists during the military regime, but she managed to survive to start a career that made her the most powerful woman in Brazil.

She is a Brazilian economist and politician affiliated to the Workers’ Party (initials of the party in Portuguese). She was the first woman to be appointed as chief minister of the Casa Civil (ministry that, among other things, evaluates and monitors the government and the organs and entities of the Federal Public Administration, in particular the goals and priority programs defined by the President). She is minister since June 21, 2005. In short, this ministry is about power over other ministries and state enterprises such as Petrobras and Banco do Brasil (the second biggest Brazilian bank).

She is known as a tough negotiator, but she is considered a very capable politician. Currently, besides being the most powerful minister in the Lula administration, she is the most quoted person to be the candidate supported by the current government for the presidential elections in 2010.

Although the party to which she belongs is divided on the possible application of her, the president himself decided that Rousseff is the one that has real chances of winning the elections in the next year.

She commands the PAC (Program for Acceleration of Growth the federal government program that includes a set of economic policies, planned with the objective of accelerating economic growth in Brazil, providing total investments of USD 250 billion by 2010, one of its priorities investment in infrastructure, in areas such as sanitation, housing, transport, energy and water resources, among others).

In short, she is a kind of “super minister” that has a high profile in the Brazilian media as she is at all major inaugurations of works made by the federal government.

Several agreements between parties allied with the PT were being made so that she could have a strong support from major national and regional leaders so Rousseff could face the opposition’s main candidate, the governor of São Paulo José Serra.

However, a “bomb” dropped in Brasilia and is causing frenzy in the Brazilian political community. It was disclosed this weekend that she has lymphatic cancer and went through a surgery and will be required four months of preventive chemotherapy.

Due to uncertainty about her health, a great confusion arose in the Brazilian political community. There is no doubt that she is a fighter and that she is a strong woman, able to overcome many adversities. But this does not prevent agreements which were already pre-established weakened.

The major current ally of the administration is the PMDB. This party is the biggest Brazilian political party and it is very strong regionally. Today is the largest in Congress (17.3% of parliamentarians and 23% of all senators) and in 2008 succeeded in electing 1201 mayors - Brazil has 5,563 cities. Do the math.

Brazilian Congress

The PMDB is a known party as “physiological” (term used by journalists, sociologists and politicians to describe a Brazilian party “bribable” politically). Although is the biggest party most of Brazil, it does not have a “own face”. It has no ideology, only will of power and is controlled by regional leaders of each state. It is the most pragmatic of all Brazilian parties. The PMDB support any president as long as senior positions be offered to its members, such as directors of agencies and state enterprises and ministries.

The alliance with the PT for the elections of 2010 was almost completed , but now things have changed. Uncertainties about the health of Dilma Rousseff may force PMDB to seek a candidate itself or perhaps to support the candidate of the opposition.

The biggest fear that the PMDB has, is running out of positions in the next government because that would weaken it (no offices, no public money for the cities controlled by this party). And it would also weaken the position of regional leadership, opening space for leaders of other parties to begin to control their states.

Here in Brazil there are 27 political parties, but few who have some kind of ideology. Among the major parties, only 2 may may be seen as ideological: the social democratic PSDB and socialist PT. And even then the differences in policies between the two are not so different.

Coldness and pragmatism, that is how works the Brazilian politics.