She eschews comparisons with Hillary Clinton and Eva Perón, but playing the Evita card may have swung the election in her favour, writes Fiona McCann
She may be glamorously attired, married to the incumbent president, and with the same friend-of-the-poor fist-shaking fire of her country's famous figurehead, Eva "Evita" Perón, but Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina's newly elected leader, is a whole new breed of icon. The first woman in her country to be elected to its highest office - Juan Perón's wife Isabel took over his presidency on his death in 1974, but was never officially elected - Cristina is also the first woman in the world to be elected to directly succeed her husband, and appears to have most Argentinians eating out of her manicured hands.
Last Sunday Elisa Carrio, a one-time beauty queen who defiantly piled on the pounds and eschewed make-up and makeovers in her rise to political prominence as leader of an increasingly centrist alternative to the dominant Perónist party, conceded defeat to her fastidiously groomed rival in what had come down to a two-woman race for the top post.
Queen Cristina, a nickname bestowed as much for the president-elect's predilection for jewels and designer clothing as for any royal pretensions, is taking on a country transformed from the reeling nation that greeted her husband Néstor Kirchner in 2003. But although the IMF has been paid off, and Argentina appears to be enjoying relative economic stability, analysts point to high inflation and a looming energy crisis as potential problems that Cristina will be forced to address if she's to keep her new subjects on side.
As the 53rd president of Argentina, she takes over from her husband Néstor Kirchner, who continues to ride high in the popularity polls after four years in office, with the power swap ensuring the Kirchner dynasty will continue at the helm of Argentinian politics for some years to come.
But when her husband first anointed Cristina as his successor, he set tongues wagging across Argentina, with speculation about his health, or a Blair/Brown-esque pact that would keep the Kirchners in power for decades. With typical obduracy, Néstor refused to furnish reasons and, despite polls showing that he would have garnered more votes than his wife if he had run for re-election himself, the incumbent president announced in July that he would step aside and make way for history, in the guise of his diminutive wife.
Last Sunday she was elected president with 45 per cent of the vote, as Argentinians ushered in the era of La Presidente. But who is this glamorous 54-year-old mother of two who will be taking charge of one of the region's largest economies just five years after an economic crash whose reverberations were felt across Latin America?
DESPITE A LONG political track record and an established international profile, the kind of president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will make remains largely a mystery.
Cristina Fernández was born into a middle-class family in Buenos Aires province, studying law at the university in her hometown of La Plata. It was there she first met Néstor Kirchner, a man initially dubbed Mr Grey when he shuffled on to the national stage in a rumpled shirt, surprising the nation by revealing his true colours and going far beyond the palette predicted by that unpromising sobriquet.
Cristina and her husband became involved in left-wing politics while in university, but the 1976 military coup that toppled Isabel Peróand the bloody dictatorship that ensued put their burgeoning political careers on hold. The restoration of democracy in 1983 paved the way for the Kirchners to return to the political arena, with Nestor rising through the Perónist ranks to be elected governor of the province of Santa Cruz. Cristina was not sitting idly by her man, however, and her outspoken politics earned her a place in the Argentine senate, representing Santa Cruz.
Then came the election that propelled Cristina into the limelight on the coat-tails of her husband, who emerged as if from nowhere in 2003 to snatch the presidency away from former president Carlos Menem. As the two men battled it out for the top post, all eyes were on the potential first ladies: Menem's beauty queen wife Cecilia Bolocco, and the chestnut-haired fashionista, Cristina Fernández.
In the end, not even Cecilia's golden locks and mile-long legs could win a disillusioned public back to Menem, and he pulled out of the race when it was clear that a second-round victory would see him trashed by Mr Grey and his colourful companion.
Against a backdrop of picketing, joblessness and mass emigration, the Kirchner reign began.
AS FIRST LADY, Cristina was quick to make her mark, being controversially granted her own office in the Casa Rosada and becoming a key adviser in her husband's government. The president, who was vocal about his pride in his forthright spouse, clearly also recognised in her a useful aid in shoring up power within the splintering Perónist party. Soon after he took office, she was pitted against the wife of Kirchner's predecessor for a senate seat in Buenos Aires. Running against fellow Perónist Hilda "Chiche" Duhalde represented a clear statement of intent and split the party into warring components, with Cristina heading up a new faction the Kirchners named Front for Victory.
And victory was theirs after a vicious campaign where Chiche accused her rival of acting "with a complete lack of ethics". The Duhaldes' fate was sealed when Cristina played her trump card, invoking the spirit of Eva Perón, stating publicly that if she were alive, Evita would be supporting Néstor Kirchner. Some 46 per cent of voters were swayed, and the Kirchners emerged as the dominant force in Argentine politics.
It wasn't the last time Cristina was to harness the popularity still enjoyed by Evita. Over the course of her time in public office, images of Perón's iconic wife have appeared as her backdrop on a number of occasions, and Cristina has cannily utilised the reverence in which Evita is still held to shore up support among the country's working classes.
But if comparisons with Eva Perón were carefully cultivated, the parallels between Cristina Fernández Kirchner and US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were impossible to ignore. Both lawyers who met their husbands at university, both married to men who went from being provincial governors to presidents, both outspoken, articulate, and clearly ambitious, and both with their eye on the big prize - Hillary and Cristina, who crossed paths in 2004, appeared cut from the same cloth.
Once again, the canny Cristina was quick to turn these associations to her benefit, with Hillary's image emblazoned on screens behind her at her campaign launch in La Plata earlier this year. But the likeness has limits: Hillary's conservative style remains in stark contrast to the glamorous designer look embraced by Cristina. Accused by her detractors of having Botox and collagen implants, she has shrugged off criticism levelled at her love of fashion and image, as has an electorate clearly unswayed by comments from her rival in the presidential race, Carrio, who referred to her as "a Botox queen".
Argentinians, it seemed, were unconcerned about reports that an hour a day had to be set aside in her official schedule for preening purposes, and though a fragmented opposition lashed out desperately at her shoe collection as the campaign heated up, the painted queen of Argentine politics remained unassailable.
In further contrast to her US counterpart, Cristina did not have to face party primaries, her candidacy being decided somewhat autocratically by her husband. And, taking a cue from Nestor, who has always eschewed public debate, Cristina refused to engage with any of her opponents publicly in the run-up to the election, and declined most press interviews over the course of her campaign, spending much of the time abroad. But while her lacklustre campaign still won out, there were rumblings of discontent from many corners following Sunday's result, indicating that not everyone was buying the Kirchner package.
"A lot of people on the losing side feel that the election wasn't clean, and that the campaign wasn't fair because Cristina Kirchner and her husband made a massive use of government and state resources in the campaign," explains political analyst Felipe Noguera. "They are selling this as a resounding victory, but in fact the whole tone of the campaign has been very divisive."
DESPITE HER SUCCESS in the country as a whole, Cristina was trounced in the capital, Buenos Aires, where she polled just 24 per cent of the votes to her rival's 38 per cent. So stark was the contrast between capital and country that the cabinet chief, Alberto Fernández, came out to demand that the citizens of Buenos Aires stop "thinking and voting like an island". Statements such as this are a cause for concern among some Argentinians, alarmed by a government rhetoric that suggests those not wholeheartedly with the Kirchners are counted as being against them. "In her victory speech, Cristina didn't congratulate the opposition. She called for others to join her own movement, rather than calling for collaboration. The message is very hegemonic," says Noguera.
Despite cautionary notes, however, it seems many are happy to see Cristina's presidency as a continuation of her husband's rule. Hernan Nessi (23) was motivated to vote for her by a desire for stability in a country that has been rocked by crisis after crisis for as long as he can remember. "The thing that worries me most is knowing what could happen tomorrow, which is why when it came to vote I looked for something that would bring me confidence and stability over a period of time, and knowing that Cristina would continue the work for the current president, her husband, reassured me," he says.
His stance was echoed at the final tally, with the majority of Argentinians apparently unconvinced by the opposition and crowning Queen Cristina as the country's new leader.
"Everybody considers her very intelligent, very well informed, and her own woman - she's not seen as a stand-in for her husband, although they have a strong political partnership, but at the same time she is very much a question mark," says Noguera.
As for the candidate herself, recent rhetoric shows she is ready to forge her own path when she takes the helm on December 10th. "I don't want to be identified with Hillary Clinton nor with Eva Perón, nor with anybody," she told local media in the days leading up to the election. "There's nothing better than being yourself."
The Kirchner File
Who is she? Argentina's outgoing First Lady.
Why is she in the news? She has just been elected president of Argentina, making history as she takes over the mantle from her husband, Nestor Kirchner.
Most appealing characteristics: Intelligence married to political shrewdness. She is also a champion of human rights who refuses to be cowed by macho political posturing.
Least appealing characteristic: Her disdain for the press - but then, we would say that.
Most likely to say: Pass me the presidential sash, dear.
Least likely to say: Let them eat cake.