NÉSTOR Kirchner, the former president of Argentina and widely considered the real power in the administration of his wife and successor President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, died suddenly of a heart attack yesterday morning.
He had been rushed to hospital from the family home in Patagonia after being taken ill early in the morning and was pronounced dead shortly afterwards. An official statement carried by the national news agency said the cause was a "heart attack with sudden death". The Clarínnewspaper reported Mrs Kirchner was with him as he was brought into the hospital on a stretcher.
Mr Kirchner (60) had suffered from serious health problems. In February he had emergency surgery to clear a blockage in his right carotid artery followed by another emergency procedure in September on a coronary artery which was followed by an angioplasty.
A populist from the country’s Peronist movement, Mr Kirchner was an obscure regional governor catapulted into power in 2003 thanks to the political turmoil left in the wake of the country’s economic collapse in 2001. A divisive figure he aggressively built up presidential power, riding a commodities boom driven by Chinese demand which helped spark the moribund economy into life. He transformed high approval ratings into support for his wife whom he installed as his successor in 2007.
A secretive figure Mr Kirchner had an authoritarian streak that saw him rule through a small circle of advisers. In his four years as president he never held a cabinet meeting and rarely talked to the press. Rumours about his health have swirled around him since he had emergency abdominal surgery in 2004.
In 2006 he collapsed while at home in Patagonia, increasing speculation that his decision not to run for a second term in 2007 was linked to his health.
But through a series of leaks of the sort which the former president typically used to communicate with the media, he made it clear in recent months that he was preparing a bid to replace his wife in next year’s elections, despite low approval ratings for the first couple amidst galloping inflation, corruption scandals and a campaign against the media.
Mr Kirchner’s death now strips his wife’s administration of its main power broker and will likely leave her increasingly isolated at a time when internal opposition to the Kirchners’ rule had been rising within the Peronist movement.