The Essentials

Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) candidate José Serra, M.A. ’76, Ph.D. ’77, fell short in his bid for the presidency of Brazil in a run-off election Oct. 31.

His opponent, Workers’ Party candidate Dilma Rousseff, received almost 56 percent of the popular vote to become the first female head of state of Latin America’s most powerful economy. She takes office in January.

Neither candidate gained a majority of the electorate when Brazilians went to the polls Oct. 3. Rousseff served as chief of staff to outgoing incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Serra in the 2002 presidential race.

Serra, a former minister of health and until recently governor of the state of São Paulo, helped found the PSDB in 1988. He earned his graduate degrees in economics at Cornell.

– Daniel Aloi

This entry was posted on November 2, 2010 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Cornell People, Update. Tagged: Brazil, Jose Serra. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.