President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina will not seek a second consecutive term in office in order to let his wife, Cristina, run as the ruling party’s candidate in an election later this year, it was announced this week. Cristina Kirchner (54), a senator and veteran politician, is favoured to win the October poll and become one of the most powerful women in Latin America.
The arrangement, all the more unusual because Nestor Kirchner (57) is popular and would probably win again if he ran himself, had been trailed for months to test public reaction.
The first lady will formally announce her candidacy on July 19 in La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires province, said the Cabinet chief, Alberto Fernandez.
The interior minister, Anibal Fernandez, said Cristina Kirchner was the most qualified candidate and would ”deepen change”.
Some have compared the switch to that of Bill and Hillary Clinton, but another parallel is that of president Juan Domingo Peron and his wife Evita, whose popularity outgrew her husband’s until her death in 1952. Sixty-one percent of voters have a positive image of Argentina’s first lady, according to a poll last Sunday.
The Kirchners hail from the same Peronist party, a left-leaning movement tinged with populism, and are riding high in the wake of five successive years of economic growth exceeding 8%, restoring the confidence and cheer shattered in the 2002 economic meltdown.
Cristina Kirchner, a lawyer who worked her way up the party ranks, was first elected to the Senate in 1995. She established herself as a formidable political operator and helped her husband to rise to the top.
In contrast with the blunt and often dour president, the first lady is seen as a more glamorous, worldly figure who can mix as easily with foreign leaders as with grassroot Peronists. Recent trips to France, Venezuela, Mexico and other countries were seen as an effort to groom that image. Some analysts say that beneath the polish she is more ideological and radical than her pragmatist partner. Critics question her dearth of executive experience.
Nestor Kirchner will focus on building up and uniting the Peronists, said the interior minister, Fernandez. — Â