Dilma Rousseff candidacy. Rousseff won the Presidency by an approximate margin of 56% to 44%, and took office on 1 January 2011, as the first woman president of the country. She became the third female head of government ever in the history of Brazil, and the first "de jure" female head of state since the death of Maria I, Queen of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in 1816. During her presidential campaign, Rousseff underwent a makeover, replacing glasses with contact lenses, undergoing plastic surgery and adopting a different hairstyle. On 26 October 2014, Rousseff was re-elected president of
Dilma Rousseff on the projects (which Rousseff has insisted should continue, and even be accelerated, with some sites seeing multiple work shifts so that construction can continue more than twenty hours per day) were harsh, while pay was low despite a high cost of living at the remote construction sites. This led to strikes and other worker actions at several hydroelectric projects. In the spring of 2012, 17,000 workers at the Jirau Dam site went on strike for over three weeks, and later some began looting company stores, setting fire to dam structures, and destroying worker housing. Military troops eventually deployed to