The woman elected to be Brazil's first female president has promised to make gender¹ equality a priority.

巴西新当选的首位女总统承诺将性别平等作为第一要务。

Dilma Rousseff said she wanted parents to be able to tell their daughters: "Yes, a woman can."

Ms Rousseff also promised to fight poverty and maintain continuity with her highly popular predecessor²（前任，前辈） , Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

She won Sunday's presidential run-off election with 56% of the vote to rival Jose Serra's 44%.

Ms Rousseff takes office on 1 January next year when President Lula steps down after completing the constitutional limit of two consecutive³ terms.

Hunger pledge

Her election as the country's first female leader was a sign of the democratic progress Brazil had made, Ms Rousseff said in her victory speech in the capital, Brasilia.

"So I am here stating my first post-election commitment: to honour Brazilian women so that this fact - unprecedented⁴ until now - becomes something normal and can be repeated and expanded in companies, public institutions, and organisations that are representative of our entire society."

She continued: "I would like very much today for fathers and mothers of daughters to look in their eyes and tell them: 'Yes, a woman can.'"

Ms Rousseff, a former Marxist rebel who was imprisoned⁵ for three years in the early 1970s for resisting military rule, promised to protect freedom of expression and worship, and to honour the constitution.

She said another priority would be to lift 20 million Brazilians out of poverty.

"I reiterate⁶（重申） my fundamental promise: the eradication⁷（消灭，根除） of poverty," she said. "We must not rest while there are Brazilians going hungry."

Ms Rousseff, 62, has never before held elected office. She trained as an economist⁸ and worked her way up through local and state governments.

She joined President Lula's cabinet as energy minister in 2003-5 and then became his chief of staff.

She paid tribute to her predecessor and promised continuity with his left-leaning policies. She is expected to emphasise⁹ government efficiency, expand the role of the state in some sectors¹⁰ such as mining, and upgrade the country's decrepit¹¹（衰老的，破旧的） infrastructure¹².

"The task of succeeding him is difficult and challenging. But I know I will honour this legacy¹³ and extend his work," she said.

"I will knock on his door often, and I know it will always be open."

'Her party'

She will also oversee¹⁴ a huge expansion of Brazil's oil industry, following the discovery of major offshore¹⁵ fields that should make Brazil one of the world's top 10 oil exporters.

She can count on strengthened majorities for the governing coalition¹⁶ in both houses of Congress to help ease the task of pushing her legislative¹⁷ agenda.

Ms Rousseff's victory owed much to the extraordinary popularity of the outgoing President Lula, who endorsed¹⁸ her as his successor for the governing Workers' Party from the start.

Lula, who has to step down after completing two consecutive terms - the maximum allowed, said he would not interfere¹⁹ in her government.

Ms Rousseff will have "to form a government in her own image - I only hope she achieves more than I did", he said after casting his vote.

He added that he would not be attending public victory celebrations because "this is her party".