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Argentine first lady sweeps presidential polls
BUENOS AIRES
Petroleumworld.com 10 30 07Argentina's First Lady Cristina Kirchner won praise and pledges of better ties from Latin American neighbors Monday after sweeping the polls to take over the presidency from her husband.
With virtually all votes counted from Sunday's election, the glamorous 54-year-old was said to have garnered 44.9 percent of the vote, nearly double the score of the nearest of her 13 rivals.
She will therefore take over the presidency from her husband Nestor Kirchner on December 10, without any need for a run-off.
A lawyer, senator and snappy dresser who is often compared to New York senator Hillary Clinton, Cristina Kirchner declared herself the winner hours after polls closed as the first official figures trickled in.
"We have won by a large margin," she said, her husband looking on and applauding.
Nestor Kirchner has not explained why he stepped aside for his wife after only one four-year term as president. But his cabinet chief, Alberto Fernandez, said voters who thought the two would be governing together were wrong.
"I don't see any risk of that at all," he said Monday. "Whoever knows the couple, their marriage, knows that, while they talk to each other about everything, they both know the role each has to play."
Observers say Kirchner faces big challenges, with high inflation, rising crime and low foreign investment all now threatening the economic recovery her husband oversaw in the wake of a 2001 collapse that led to a historic debt default and devaluation of the peso.
"She will find it a very different challenge than that during her husband's term," Michael Shifter, a Latin American analyst at the Washington think tank The Dialogue, told AFP.
"We congratulate her and recognize her victory," said the second-placed candidate, former lawmaker Elisa Carrio, who won nearly 23 percent of the vote.
Roberto Lavagna, a former economy minister sacked two years ago by Nestor Kirchner, came in third with 16.9 percent. Eleven other candidates trailed behind.
Voting is compulsory in Argentina.
The presidents of Chile, Venezuela and Brazil were the first to congratulate Kirchner on her win.
Chile's Michelle Bachelet, who was the first woman elected to the presidency in her country in January 2006, said: "It's not a coincidence that these two neighboring countries, with similar characteristics, have elected women to direct their destinies."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called it "a triumph for women of Latin America," and said he hoped to deepen ties he has nurtured with the Argentine first couple.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Washington congratulated Kirchner on her victory, and the Argentine people on participating in free and fair elections. He added that US administration hoped to work with Kirchner on bilateral and regional issues.
Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and France's Nicolas Sarkozy each invited Kirchner to visit them.
Aside from the Hillary Clinton comparison, Kirchner's glamor and confidence -- some say arrogance -- have also earned her references to Argentina's most iconic woman politician: Eva, or "Evita" Peron, second wife to president Juan Peron.
Peron's third wife, Isabel, was Argentina's first-ever female president -- but unlike Kirchner, she was unelected. She was elevated from the vice-presidency on her husband's death in 1974 and ousted in a coup two years later.
Story by Marc Burleigh from AFP
AFP 292019 GMT 10 07
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