Antônio Pedro de Siqueira Indio da Costa on June 30, 2010, was chosen as the running mate to Presidential candidate José Serra. - in what was seem as a move pressed on Serra by the DEM leadership, as Serra tended to favour a "pure-blooded" PSDB ticket As vice-presidential candidate, he made himself noticed mostly by his declarations accusing the Workers' Party of connections with the FARC and international drug dealing, something that earned him the nickname of "Serra['s] Palin". After the results of the 2010 election, which by the popular vote elected Dilma Rousseff as Brazil's first female president, Indio da Costa parted from his former political
Dilma Rousseff by Rousseff, which is, accordind to him, helping the segment as a whole. He criticized, however, the delay in the implementation of the new model, but said that this is the fault of the bureaucratic government machinery. Convinced that urgent investments in power generation were required so that the country would not face a general blackout in 2009, Rousseff entered in a serious clash with then Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, which defended the embargo on several construction sites, concerned with the ecological imbalance that they could cause. Dirceu had to create a team of mediators between the two ministers