Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

Vice President of Argentina

• Born: February 19, 1953
• Place of Birth: La Plata, Argentina

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a lawyer and former senator, was elected president of Argentina in October 2007, succeeding her late husband, Néstor Kirchner. After becoming president, she faced challenges related to rising inflation and a sinking approval rating, however, she was reelected in 2011. She remained president until the end of her second term, leaving office in 2015, after the election of Mauricio Macri. She subsequently returned to her former position of senator, from 2017 to 2019, at which point she assumed the office of vice president under President Alberto Fernández.

Background

Cristina Elisabet Fernández was born on February 19, 1953, in La Plata, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. In the 1970s, she studied at National University of La Plata, where, in addition to earning a law degree, she met her future husband, Néstor Kirchner. The couple married in 1975 and moved back to Kirchner's hometown of Río Gallegos in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz. They had two children and both practiced law in Río Gallegos before turning to politics in the 1980s. Both joined the Justicialist Party, a Peronist political party founded in 1947 by Juan and Eva Perón themselves, in 1986. Fernández was elected to the provincial legislature in Santa Cruz in 1989 and in 1991, and her husband, Néstor, won the governorship of Santa Cruz, a position he would hold for the next twelve years.

Argentina in Context

After Argentina declared its independence from Spain in 1810, it was governed by the political elite until the Great Depression of 1929, which led to a collapse in the price of Argentine exports. In 1930, unemployment and inflation skyrocketed, and the Argentine military seized control of the government. Out of this military government came one of the most charismatic and enigmatic figures in Argentine political history, Colonel Juan Domingo Perón.

In his official position as minister of war, Perón formed alliances with trade unions and publicly advocated for greater political and economic powers for the Argentine people. After he was imprisoned by the military, massive public demonstrations successfully gained his release. In 1946, national elections were held that swept Perón into the presidency. With his blonde and charismatic wife, Eva Perón, commonly known as Evita, by his side, Perón developed a political philosophy that came to be known as Peronism, which advocated for a strong centralized Argentine state, powerful trade unions, large social-welfare programs, and a passionate devotion to Argentine nationalism.

The military and upper classes regarded Peronism with alarm, and in 1955, a military coup forced Perón into exile. Over the course of the next thirty years, Argentina suffered from severe instability as political parties, trade unions, and the military struggled to gain control over the government. During the 1960s, right- and left-wing terrorist groups formed and launched numerous terrorist bombings and political assassinations across the country. In 1973, political instability allowed an aged Perón to return from exile and assume control of the government, but even his efforts failed to stabilize the country. Following his death in 1974, his new wife, Isabel Perón, briefly governed before a military coup disposed of her in 1976.

The military junta then in charge launched a seven-year campaign against terrorism known as La Guerra Sucia, or the Dirty War. Without the benefit of arrest and trial, the military regime rounded up and executed anyone suspected of terrorism or harboring terrorist sympathies. It is estimated that between eleven thousand and thirty thousand people were killed in these extrajudicial killings.

Following Argentina's defeat by the United Kingdom in the Falkland Islands War (1983), the country returned to democratic rule. Much of the 1980s was spent recovering from the military regime, and a controversial amnesty law prevented the civilian government from prosecuting people responsible for the atrocities. In the 1990s, controversial president Carlos Menem liberalized the Argentine economy by promoting privatization and pursuing free market policies with generous loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In 2001, however, Argentina was unable to service its debt to the IMF. The resultant devaluing of the Argentine peso caused a run on the banks that effectively collapsed the national economy. Widespread political chaos ensued, and three successive governments failed to stabilize the Argentine economy. In April 2003, new national elections brought Peronist politician Néstor Kirchner to the presidency.

The Kirchners in Power

Néstor Kirchner was elected with 22 percent of the vote. He won by calling for a return of Peronist equality in Argentina and launched several initiatives to restore faith in the Argentine government. He began negotiations for restructuring Argentine debt with the IMF, a move that culminated with Kirchner's unilateral cancellation of all the remaining debt in 2005.

The Argentine economy enjoyed some recovery under Néstor Kirchner. By promoting generous public spending and subsidies, Kirchner enjoyed 60 percent approval ratings by the end of his term. Surprisingly, Kirchner announced he would not run for reelection. However, he did announce his support for another candidate: his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Fernández was no political novice. From 1995 to 2005, she had spent several terms in the Argentine Senate and the chamber of deputies. Additionally, Fernández served as a roving international ambassador for her husband during his presidency, a position that drew inevitable comparisons to Eva Perón, which Fernández has variously encouraged and discouraged.

Fernández won the October 2007 election, claiming 45.3 percent of the vote. On December 10, 2007, she was sworn into office as the president of Argentina.

The transition between the Kirchners was not smooth. An immediate political controversy surfaced over what became known as the maletinazo (suitcase scandal), referring to US$800,000 discovered in a Venezuelan American's briefcase in the Buenos Aires airport. A United States attorney filed charges in Miami, claiming that this money was an illegal contribution from Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to Fernández's campaign. Fernández spent two months sparring with the US embassy over the allegations. Political opposition and elements of the Argentine media lambasted Fernández for her alleged corruption and ties to Chavez.

Conflict with the Agricultural Sector

The potential corruption scandal was soon overshadowed by more pressing economic issues. In an attempt to alleviate the effects of rising inflation among the Argentine lower classes, Fernández and her economic advisers introduced a tax increase on exported agricultural commodities, in particular soy exports. The high prices fetched by commodities on the world market seemed to justify the increase, but the increase from a 35 percent to a 44 percent tax infuriated Argentine farmers, who claimed the tax negated any profits.

Farmer associations launched a nationwide strike on March 12, 2008, and blocked the highways leading to the major cities. General protests in support of the farmers broke out across the country. On March 25, violent clashes took place between demonstrators and Fernández supporters in front of the presidential palace in Buenos Aires. While Fernández supporters organized further pro-government marches in Buenos Aires, media polls in April and May showed that Fernández's approval ratings were sinking.

On April 25, 2008, Fernández accepted the resignation of her leading economic minister, but the damage to her presidency was not easily repaired. Polls showed that public approval ratings for her administration had sunk to a record low of 23 percent. While she retained strong approval among the lower classes, the Argentine middle class had become increasingly alienated from Fernández for her lack of will to break the negotiating deadlock with the farmers.

The agricultural conflict was ultimately resolved in July, when the Senate voted on whether to make the proposed tax increase law. The vote was a tie, which Vice President Julio Cobos broke by voting against the tax. The new tax was officially revoked later that month.

The Future

Fernández's approval ratings soon rebounded after her new tax increase was revoked, and she turned her attention to issues of social welfare, introducing initiatives to nationalize public pensions and establish a universal benefits program for children. In 2010, she signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Argentina.

By claiming the mantle of Peronism, the Kirchners rallied many elements of the country to them in the wake of the financial crisis. However, while Néstor Kirchner's administration had briefly stabilized the economy, he was unable to solve the fundamental problem of inflation, which unofficial estimates put at 25 percent. This problem was passed onto Fernández's administration, which faced the prospect of cutting public spending and allowing the peso to appreciate.

Néstor Kirchner died suddenly of a heart attack on October 27, 2010. Following his death, thousands of people paid their respects at Argentina's presidential palace.

Many analysts have pointed to the Kirchners as another example of the radical political leftism that is sweeping across South America in the wake of Hugo Chavez's ascension to power in 2002. However, while such leftist governments have enjoyed a groundswell of popular support, it remains to be seen if they can successfully address the fundamental economic problems they face.

Fernández was reelected as president in October 2011 with 54.1 percent of the vote, the widest margin of votes in Argentina’s history, becoming the first Latin American woman to be reelected as president. During her second term, she continued to advance a liberal social agenda, including a law introduced in 2012 that would enable transgender men and women to change their listed gender on legal documents without having undergone surgery. Fernández also focused on economic reform, with somewhat less success; measures that were intended to slow inflation instead had the opposite effect, leading to a sharp devaluing of the peso in January 2014 and a new economic crisis that prompted two nationwide general strikes within the space of four months.

While Argentina's constitution only allows a president to serve for two consecutive terms, Fernández had hoped to pass an amendment that would enable her to run for a third term in 2015. However, in the 2013 midterm elections, Fernández's faction of the Justicialist Party, known as the Front for Victory, failed to win the number of seats necessary to pass such an amendment. Fernández was therefore unable to run for a third term, and was succeeded in December 2015 by the center-right Mauricio Macri. Though Argentina's economy was again in a slump by the time she left office, her popularity ratings remained high through the end of her tenure as president.

Continued Political Career

In April 2016, Fernández was called to testify in a hearing regarding irregularities in the Central Bank during the last months of her administration; she took the opportunity to denounce her political opponents both in her testimony and in a speech to her supporters outside of the courthouse. Her assets were frozen in December of that year, followed by the opening of an official investigation into her conduct.

At the same time, Fernández announced her run for senator. With her former interior minister Florencio Randazzo also running, Fernández suggested a shared ticket to avoid Argentina's primary elections, however, Randazzo refused. Fernández subsequently won the mandatory 2017 primary election, but lost the general election. She still earned a seat in the Senate, however, due to a technicality in the Argentine Senate election procedure that gives two of the three senate seats to the party with the largest vote share. She officially took office in December 2017.

The same month, Fernández was indicted by Judge Claudio Bonadio; she was charged with high treason. She was saved from prosecution, however, due to immunity as a senator. In March 2018, she faced further legal issues when she was indicted for obstructing the investigation into the 1944 AMIA bombing that resulted in the deaths of eighty-five people. Fernández had allegedly stopped the investigation into an Iranian official who may have been involved in the attack in exchange for reduced prices on oil from Iran. Her prosecution was delayed, again due to her immunity. A court dismissed the case against her in 2021. Another case had accused her and her family of involvement in a money laundering operation. That case, which involved hotel rooms and real estate, was also dismissed in 2021.

In May 2019, Fernández announced that she would be running for vice president in that year's elections. Running with presidential nominee Alberto Fernandez, the pair won the election in October 2019. Fernández resigned her senate seat upon assuming the role of vice president in December. She published the book Sinceramente in 2019.

In December 2022, she was found guilty of fraudulent administration and sentenced to six years in prison. In this case, Fernández showed favoritism in awarding public works contracts to businessman Lazaro Baez. She was also banned for life from holding public office. She did not run for reelection in 2023. She and her legal team began the appeals process after her term ended.

In June 2023, a judge dismissed a money-laundering case against her that also involved Baez, a longtime associate of Fernández and her late husband. Prosecutors and state agencies said they had found no evidence she had been involved in a crime. This case was referred to as the "K money trail."

Bibliography

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