Luciana Lima and Daniela Jinkings       Reporters Agência Brasil

Brasília – President Dilma Rousseff has nominated senator Gleisi Hoffman (PT-PR) to be the new presidential Chief of Staff (“ministra-chefe da Casa Civil”), replacing Antonio Palocci.

Hoffman has been a member of the PT since 1989. In 2002, she was a member of the transition team as the Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva prepared to take office.

She ran for the senate from Paraná in 2006 and lost. She ran for mayor of Curitiba in 2008 and lost. Shortly after that election, she became the state president of the PT. Last year, she ran for the senate again and was elected with almost 3.2 million votes (two senators were elected and she was the one with the most votes).

Gleisi Hoffman has been a state secretary in Mato Grosso do Sul (Administrative Restructuring), a city official in Londrina (Public Management) and the Director of Finances at the Bi-National Itaipu hydroelectric power plant.

The new minister is a 45-year-old lawyer and is married to Dilma’s minister of Communications, Paulo Bernardo (he was Lula’s minister of Planning). They have two children.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Senadora Gleisi Hoffmann é a nova chefe da Casa Civil