Cristina_fernández_de_kirchner

Cristina Elizabet Fernández de Kirchner
55th President of Argentina
Incumbent
Assumed office  December 10, 2007
Vice President	Julio Cobos
Preceded by	Néstor Kirchner
First Lady of Argentina
In office 25 May 2003 – 10 December 2007
Preceded by	Hilda de Duhalde
Succeeded by	Néstor Kirchner
Argentine Senator
In office 1995 - 1997 2001 - 2007
Member of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies
In office 1997 – 2001
Born	19 February 1953 (1953-02-19) (age 55) La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina(Spanish)Sitio oficial de Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Retrieved on 2007-11-04.
Political party	FPV PJ
Spouse	Néstor Kirchner
Children	Máximo Florencia
Alma mater	National University of La Plata
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Roman Catholic

Cristina with Presidential cane and Presidential sash

Cristina Elizabet Fernández de Kirchner (born February 19 1953 as Cristina Elizabet Fernández), also commonly known as Cristina Fernández or Cristina Kirchner, is the current President of Argentina and a member of the Justicialist Party.

In the October 2007 general election, Fernández ran for President of Argentina, representing the ruling Front for Victory party. She won the presidency with 45.29% of the vote, and a 22% lead over her nearest rival—one of the widest margins a candidate has obtained since democracy returned in 1983—avoiding the need for a runoff election.(Spanish) Cristina Fernández ganó elecciones presidenciales con el 45,29% de los votos. La Tercera. Retrieved on 2007-11-18. She is Argentina\'s second female president (after Isabel Martínez de Perón), but the first to be elected. Sworn in on December 10 2007, she became the first wife in history to be elected to succeed her husband as a president. Néstor Kirchner has also become the first First Gentleman in Argentine history.

Fernández and husband Néstor Kirchner have two children, Máximo and Florencia.(Spanish) Senadora Nacional Cristina E. Fernández De Kirchner. República Argentina. Retrieved on 2007-11-04.

Early life

Fernández was born in La Plata, province of Buenos Aires, daughter of Eduardo Fernández (of Spanish heritage) and Ofelia Wilhelm (of German heritage). She studied law at the National University of La Plata during the 1970s. During her studies there she met her future spouse, Néstor. They married on March 9, 1975 and had two children: Máximo and Florencia.

Political career

Cristina Kirchner (on the right) next to U.S. First Lady Laura Bush, on 5 November 2005, during the state visit of the Bushes for the Mar del Plata Summit of the Americas

Kirchner started her political career in the Peronist Youth movement of the Justicialist Party in the 1970s. During the period of authoritarian rule in the country she and Néstor dropped out of politics and practised law in Río Gallegos. She picked up politics again in the late 1980s, and was elected to the Santa Cruz provincial legislature in 1989, a position to which she was re-elected in 1993.

In 1995 she was elected to represent Santa Cruz in the Senate, and in 1997 in the Chamber of Deputies. In 2001 she won again a seat in the Senate.

Kirchner provided the main backbone to her husband\'s successful campaign for the presidency in 2003, against two other Justicialist candidates and several other competitors. In the April 27, 2003 presidential election first round, former president Carlos Saúl Menem won the greatest number of votes (25%), but failed to get the votes necessary to win an overall majority. A second-round run-off vote between Menem and second-place finisher Néstor Kirchner was scheduled for May 18. Feeling certain that he was about to face a resounding electoral defeat, Menem decided to withdraw his candidacy, thus automatically making Kirchner the new president, with 21.97% of the votes (the lowest number in the history of the country).(Spanish) "Menem y Kirchner disputarán la segunda vuelta el 18 de mayo", La Nación, April 28, 2003. 

During her husband\'s term, Cristina Kirchner became an itinerant ambassador for his government. Her highly combative speech style polarized Argentine politics, recalling the style of Eva Perón. Although she repeatedly rejected the comparison later, Fernández once said in an interview that she identified herself "with the Evita of the hair in a bun and the clenched fist before a microphone" (the typical image of Eva Perón during public speeches) more than with the "miraculous Eva" of her mother\'s time, who had come "to bring work and the right to vote for women".(Spanish) "\'Me identifico con la Eva del puño crispado\'", Clarín, 27 July 2007. Rory Carroll and Oliver Balch (26 October 2007). President in waiting evokes echo of Evita. Guardian Unlimited.James Sturcke (29 October 2007). The art of the possible. Guardian Unlimited.

She was the main candidate for Senator of the Front for Victory faction of her party in the province of Buenos Aires, for the 23 October 2005 elections, in a heated campaign directed mainly against Hilda González de Duhalde, the wife of former interim president Eduardo Duhalde. Kirchner won the elections by a 25% margin over González.

Election to Presidency of Argentina

President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, with her husband Néstor, the ex-president of Argentina 2007-10-28.

With Kirchner leading all the pre-election polls by a wide margin, her challengers were trying to force her into a run-off. She needed either more than 45% of the vote, or 40% of the vote and a lead of more than 10% over her nearest rival, to win outright. The legality of her presidential bid funding was later disputed when U.S federal prosecutors alleged that the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez secretly tried to funnel nearly $1 million in cash to her campaign, 4 in Miami held in Argentine campaign scandal. Miami Herald. Retrieved on 2007-12-12. while these allegations were vehemently denied by both the Argentinian and Venezuelan governments. Venezuela, Argentina Accuse US of Smear Campaign. Venezuelanalysis. Retrieved on 2007-12-14.

Kirchner finally won the election in the first round with 45.29% of the vote, followed by 22% for Elisa Carrió (candidate for the Civic Coalition) and 16% for former Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna. Eleven others split the remaining 15%.(Spanish) "Cristina se aleja por más de 20 puntos sobre el final del escrutinio", Clarín, 29 October 2007.  Fernández was popular among the suburban working class and the rural poor, while Carrió received more support from the urban middle class."A Mixed Message in Argentina\'s Vote", Time, 29 October 2007.  Of note, Fernández lost the election in the three largest cities (Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Rosario), although she won in most other places elsewhere, including the large provincial capitals such as Mendoza and Tucumán.(Spanish) Alpargatas sí, centros urbanos no. Página/12 (1 November 2007).

The president elect began a four-year term on 10 December 2007, facing challenges including inflation, union demands for higher salaries, private investment in key areas, lack of institutional credibility (exemplified by the controversy surrounding the national statistics bureau, INDEC), utility companies demanding authorization to raise their fees, low availability of cheap credit to the private sector, and the upcoming negotiation of the defaulted foreign debt with the Paris Club. (Spanish) Los desafíos en el área económica que esperan al próximo gobierno. Página/12 (29 October 2007).(Spanish) "Empresarios contentos por la continuidad del modelo K", Clarín, 28 October 2007. (Spanish) "Prevén que el desempleo se ubicará en el 8% a fin de año", La Nación, 24 May 2007. 

Cabinet

On 14 November, Cristina Kirchner announced the names of her new cabinet, which started working with her on 10 December. Of the 12 ministers appointed, seven were already ministers in Néstor Kirchner\'s government whilst the other five took office for the first time.El nuevo Gabinete: Lousteau va a Economía y De Vido sigue en Planificación Federal (Spanish)

President

President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, with Venezuela\'s president Hugo Chavez 2008-03-05.

During the first days of her presidency, Argentina\'s relations with the United States deteriorated as a result of allegations of illegal campaign contributions made by a United States assistant attorney, case known as the maletinazo (suitcase scandal). The allegations were made in the context of the intimidation to a U.S. citizen by agents of a foreign country. According to the allegations agents tried to pressure the U.S. citizen (Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson) to lie about the origin of $790,550 in cash found in his suitcase on August 4, 2007 at a Buenos Aires airport. U.S. prosecutors said the money was sent to help Fernandez\'s presidential campaign.

Fernandez de Kirchner and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, called the allegations garbage and part of a conspiracy orchestrated by the United States to divide Latin American nations. On December 19, 2007 she restricted the U.S. ambassador\'s activities and limited his meetings to Foreign Ministry officials; a treatment reserved for hostile countries, in the opinion of a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State. (Spanish) Cristina y Chávez, juntos contra EE.UU. La Nacion. Retrieved on 2007-12-19. Argentina Protests Charges, Restricts U.S. Ambassador. Bloomberg. Retrieved on 2007-12-20. Argentina, Venezuela and America. Slush and garbage. The Economist. Retrieved on 2008-1-3.

Elisa Carrio and Maria Estenssoro, both high ranking members of the main opposition parties, have claimed that the Argentine government\'s response to the allegations and its criticism of the US are a "smokescreen" and described US involvement in the affair as merely symptomatic, alleging that corruption in the Argentinean and Venezuelan governments are the root cause of the scandal. Troubles for Argentina\'s New Evita. TIME (20 December 2007).

The Argentine public as a whole gives high ratings to Fernández de Kirchner; a December 2007 poll showed 57.8 per cent of respondents rated the start of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner\'s tenure as good or very good. Positive Rating for Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner. Angus Reid (31 December 2007).

References

External links

(Spanish) Office of the President

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

(Spanish) Official site of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
(Spanish) Senate of the Argentine Republic website
(Spanish) Extensive biography by CIDOB Foundation

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