Argentina's spirited first lady to keep her Senate seat
By Liliana Samuel
Newly-inaugurated
President of Argentina Nestor Kirchner (l) with his wife Senator
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (r) and daughter Florencia (c),
waving to the well-wishers.AFP
PHOTO/Ali BURAFI
Alicia Kirchner (r), sister of the newly-inaugurated Argentine President Nestor Kirchner (l), takes the oath as Social Development Minister. AFP PHOTO/AliBURAFI
BUENOS AIRES (AFP) Argentina's new
first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will bring a style of
own to her husband's tenure, retaining her Senate seat while exerting
her firm influence on the government.
The 50-year-old wife of President Nestor Kirchner has made clear
her role will be "not first lady, but first citizen."
Seen as talented and ambitious, Fernandez is a respected senator
representing the southern province of Santa Cruz. She is considered
a better orator than her husband and has often been compared to
the former US first lady and current senator, Hillary Clinton.
Born into a middle-class home, Fernandez's political career began in the turbulent 1970s in Argentina's Buenos Aires province, when she was a law student at the University of La Plata, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) south of Argentine capital Buenos Aires.
Fernandez met her husband-to-be at law school. In 1975 they married, and in 1976 they moved to the remote Santa Cruz province, in Argentina's vast Patagonia region.
In 1989 Fernandez was elected provincial deputy for the sparsely populated province, and in 1991 Kirchner was elected the province's governor a job he kept until taking the presidency. The couple's two children Maximo, 26, and Florencia, 13, were both born there.
Fernandez was later elected to the national
senate, then to the chamber of deputies, then to the senate again
in 2001. She currently heads the senate strategic constitutional
affairs committee.
"Queen Cristina" was the headline dedicated to her in
the weekly Noticias magazine. Even before her husband took office,
the magazine proclaimed her as "the most feared person in
the government."
"She's sexy, extremely intelligent, unforgiving of her enemies,"
Noticias wrote. She is a woman who can "destabilize men's
security and ego," and has a reputation that has earned her
epithets such as "tough," "authoritarian,"
and "cold" even "witch" from some of
her opponents.
The match with her husband amounts to a "spectacular symbiosis," according to Santa Cruz deputy governor Hector Icazuriaga.
"She's fiery, talented, a fighter and strong, while he is reflective, diligent, dedicated in his work as an administrator, putting in 24 hours' work a day," Icazuriaga told AFP.
A long-time member of the Peronist party, Fernandez was also a staunch opponent of former president Carlos Menem, who ran Argentina from 1989 to 1999.