A small town in central Bulgaria will be keeping its fingers crossed on Oct. 31 when Socialist candidate Dilma Rousseff appears in the presidential run-off in far-away Brazil.
Gabrovo is her father’s hometown and Rousseff still has cousins there — albeit ones she has never met.
“I jumped when I first heard on television the name Dilma Rousseff, then minister of energy and mining,” says 72-year-old Toshka Kovacheva, the wife of Rousseff’s cousin Tsvetan Kovachev.
“It was during a visit of Bulgarian President [Georgy] Parvanov to Brazil in 2003,” she said.
In a recent interview, Rousseff told Bulgaria’s 24 Hours newspaper: “I have a feeling of tenderness and love [for Bulgaria].
“I can even say I feel Bulgarian to some extent even if I have never visited my late father’s native country,” she said, adding that she would “no doubt come to visit.”
Bulgarian media — who normally give limited coverage to election results from abroad — have jumped at the news of Rousseff’s Bulgarian link, dispatching special correspondents to delve into the story, both in Brazil and in Gabrovo.
They found that her father Petar Rousseff emigrated to France in 1929 and then via Argentina to Brazil where he settled down under the name Pedro Rousseff, leaving behind his parents and a pregnant wife who thought him dead.
It was not until 1948 that his mother Tsana received a letter announcing Petar’s success as a construction entrepreneur in his adopted country, his marriage to a Brazilian woman and the birth of his three children, including Dilma, the Bulgarian cousins said.
“She owes her success to herself only, not to her parents,” her 67-year-old cousin Tsanka Kamenova said.
The focus on Rousseff’s Bulgarian origins was somewhat “exaggerated,” she said.
However, she added: “I admire her steadfastness and courage. It’s a pity that the media here are little interested in her electoral platform.”
Kovacheva described how Petar Rousseff, who died in 1962 without ever having returned to Bulgaria, kept in touch with his son Lyuben from his first marriage.
“I know that his son, also a construction engineer, wanted to join him in Brazil, but this was impossible during the [communist] regime,” she said.
Lyuben, Dilma’s half-brother, died two years ago.
Led by Kovacheva and her daughter, Gabrovo was already caught up in the excitement during the first-round presidential battle, sending Rouseff a message of support and CDs with Bulgarian folk music and dances.
Mocking their reputation for exploitation, residents were now planning how to profit from Rousseff’s link to the town.
“She should bring the Brazilian investors in — they can learn a lot about crisis management from us,” quipped pensioner Jan Georgiev.
Mayor Nikolay Sirakov had another idea: “Our spring carnival of humor might cooperate with the carnival in Rio.”
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