Néstor Kirchner
(born
25 February 1950) is the current
President of
Argentina. He was sworn in on
May 25,
2003. A
Justicialist with
leftist leanings, Kirchner was
governor of the
province of
Santa Cruz prior to being elected president.
Kirchner was born in
RÃo Gallegos, in the
Patagonian province of Santa Cruz. His father, who was a post office official, was of
Swiss descent; his mother,
Marija Ostoić, born in
Punta Arenas,
Chile, was of
Croatian background. He received his primary and secondary education at local public schools; he obtained his high-school diploma from the
Colegio Nacional República de Guatemala.
Early on, Kirchner participated in the Movimiento Justicialista, first as a member of the Young Peronists, whose left-wing
radicalism was strongly opposed to the
military dictatorships. In the mid-1970s, Kirchner studied law at
La Plata National University, receiving his law degree in 1976. He returned to RÃo Gallegos with his wife,
Cristina Fernández, also a lawyer and member of the
Justicialist Party (
Partido Justicialista, PJ), to practice law. During the dictatorial
National Reorganization Process under
Videla, he was incarcerated at one point, the reason for and duration of which is not known.
After the downfall of the military dictatorship and restoration of
democracy in
1983, Kirchner became a public officer in the provincial government. The following year, he was briefly president of the RÃo Gallegos
social welfare fund, but was forced out by the governor because of a dispute over financial policy. The affair made him a local celebrity and laid the foundation for his subsequent political career.
By 1986, Kirchner had developed sufficient political capital to be put forward as the PJ's candidate for
mayor of RÃo Gallegos. He won the 1987 elections for this post by the slimmest of margins — some one hundred votes. Fellow PJ member
Ricardo del Val became governor, which kept Santa Cruz firmly within the hands of the PJ.
Kirchner's performance as mayor from 1987 to 1991 was satisfactory enough from both the point of view of the electorate and the party to enable him to run for governor in 1991, which he won with 61% of the votes. By this time his wife was also member of the provincial congress.
When Kirchner entered the governor's office, the province of
Santa Cruz (pop. 200,000) only contributed one percent to Argentina's
gross national product, primarily through the production of raw materials (mostly
oil), and was being battered by the ongoing economic crisis, with high
unemployment and a budget deficit equal to 1,200 million
USD. He arranged for substantial
investments to stimulate productivity, the labor market, and consumption. By eliminating unproductive expenditures and cutting back on tax exemptions for the key petroleum industry, Kirchner restored the financial equilibrium of the province. Through his expansionist and social policies, Kirchner was credited with bringing a substantial measure of prosperity to Santa Cruz. Subsequent studies showed that the province had a better
distribution of wealth and lower levels of
poverty than most other provinces, second only to
Buenos Aires.
Kirchner emerged as a center-left Peronist, critical both of President
Menem's far-reaching
neoliberal model and of the
syndicalist bureaucracy of the PJ. He attached great importance to not only careful management of the budgetary deficits but also economic growth based on domestic production, rather than financial
speculation. He was also considered a
progressive in
human rights issues, voicing his opposition to Menem's decision in 1990 to grant a presidential
pardon to the leaders of the last junta.
Kirchner's tasks as governor were made easier by the modest scale of the province's economic base and its limited labor market. Critics claimed he was no different from most of the other Peronist governors, and when push came to shove, he also relied on
personalism and
authoritarianism, above all in his handling of the provincial
media and appointing his judges. Public control of job positions and a heavily-
subsidized economy also lent itself to
clientelism typical in the semi-
feudal environment of the remote provinces.
In 1994 and 1998, Kirchner introduced amendments to the provincial constitution, so as to enable him to run for re-election indefinitely. As a member of the
1994 Constitutional Assembly organized by Menem and former president
Raúl AlfonsÃn, Kirchner participated in the elaboration of a new national constitution, which made possible for the president to be re-elected to a second four-year term.
In 1995, with his constitutional reforms in place, Kirchner was easily re-elected to a second term in office, with 66.5% of the votes. But by now, Kirchner was distancing himself from the charismatic and controversial Menem, who was also the nominal head of the PJ; this was made particularly apparent with the launch of
Corriente Peronista, an initiative supported by Kirchner to create an alternative space within the Justicialist Party, outside of Menem's influence.
In 1998, Menem's attempt to stand for re-election a second time, by means of an ad hoc interpretation of a constitutional clause, met with strong resistance among Peronist rank-and-file, who were finding themselves under increasing pressure due to the highly controversial policies of the Menem administration and its involvement in corruption scandals. Kirchner joined the camp of Menem's chief opponent within the PJ, the governor of Buenos Aires Province (and later president, 2002–2003)
Eduardo Duhalde.
Menem did not run, and the PJ nominated Duhalde. The elections of
24 October 1999 were a major upset for the PJ; Duhalde was beaten by
Fernando de la Rúa, the
Alianza (opposition coalition) candidate, and the party lost its majority in
Congress. The Alianza also made headway in Santa Cruz, but Kirchner nonetheless managed to be re-elected to a third term in May of that year with 45.7% of the vote. De la Rúa's victory was in part a rejection of Menem's perceived flamboyance and corruption during his last term. De la Rúa instituted austerity measures and reforms to improve the economy; taxes were increased to reduce the deficit, the government bureaucracy was trimmed, and legal restrictions on union negotiations were eased.
These measures did not work to stop the
economic collapse. By late 2000, Argentina was deep in
recession and the country was forced in to seek help from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private banks to reduce its debt. In December 2000, an aid package of nearly $40,000 million was arranged, and the government announced a $20,000 million
public works program that was designed to help revive the economy. Despite measures designed to revive it, the economy remained in recession, however, aggravating the problems posed by the debt and by the restrictions that the IMF imposed in return for aid. Unemployment rose to around 20% at the end of 2001. In November, the government began restructuring the debt, putting it essentially in default. Ongoing economic problems led to a crisis of confidence as depositors began a
run on the banks, resulting in the highly unpopular
corralito, a limit, and subsequently a full ban, on withdrawals. The IMF took a hard line, insisting on a 10% cut in the budget before making further payments.
Nationwide
riots,
looting,
strikes and
demonstrations erupted in late December, leading De La Rúa to resign (see
December 2001 riots). A series of
interim presidents and renewed demonstrations ended with the appointment of Duhalde as interim president in January 2002, to serve until new presidential elections in 2003. Duhalde abolished the
fixed exchange rate regime that had been in place since 1991, and the
Argentine peso quickly
devalued by more than two thirds of its value, decimating middle-class savings and sinking the heavily
import-dependent Argentine economy even deeper. There was a strong public rejection of the entire political class, characterized by the pithy slogan
que se vayan todos ("away with them all").
Kirchner's electoral promises included "returning to a republic of equals". After the first round of the election, Kirchner visited the president of
Brazil,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who received him enthusiastically. He also declared he was proud of his radical left-wing political past.
Although Menem, who was president from 1989 to 1999, won the first round of the election on
April 27,
2003, he only got 24% of the valid votes — just 2% ahead of Kirchner. This was an empty victory, as Menem had by then a strongly negative image among a large segment of the Argentine population and had virtually no chance of winning the
runoff election. After days of speculation, during which polls forecast a massive victory for Kirchner with about a 30%–40% difference, Menem finally decided to stand down. This automatically made Kirchner president of Argentina. He was sworn in on
May 25,
2003 to a four-year term of office.
Kirchner came into office on the tail of a deep economic crisis with only 22% of votes. A country which once vied with
Europe in levels of prosperity and considered itself a bulwark of European culture in Latin America found itself deeply impoverished, with a decimated
middle-class and
malnutrition appearing in the lower strata of society. The country was burdened with $178,000 million in debt, the government strapped for cash. While associated to the clientelist and feudal-like style of government of many provincial governors and the corruption of the PJ, Kirchner was comparatively unknown to the national public, and showed himself as a newcomer who arrived at the
Casa Rosada without the usual whiff of scandal about him, trying not to make a point of the fact that he himself was seven times in the same electoral ballot with Menem.
Shortly after coming into office, Kirchner made changes to the
Argentine Supreme Court. He denounced blackmailing on the part of certain justices and pressured them to resign, while also fostering the
impeachment of two others. In place of a majority of politically right-wing and religiously conservative justices, he appointed new ones who were ideologically closer to him, including two women (one of them an avowed atheist). Kirchner also retired dozens of generals, admirals, and brigadiers from the armed forces, a few of them with reputations tainted by the atrocities of the
Dirty War.
Kirchner kept the Minister of the Economy of the Duhalde administration,
Roberto Lavagna, who piloted Argentina through the unpopular
corralito and the painful devaluation, but Lavagna also declared his first priority now was social problems. Argentina's
default was the largest in financial history, and ironically it gave Kirchner and Lavagna a certain bargaining power with the IMF, which loathes having bad debts in its books. During his first year of office, Kirchner achieved a difficult agreement to reschedule $84,000 million in debts with international organizations, for three years. In the first half of 2005, the government launched a
bond exchange to restructure the approximately $81,000 million of private debt (there were an additional $20,000 million in past defaulted interest not recognized). Over 76% of the debt was tendered and restructured for a recovery value of approximately one third of its nominal value.
Kirchner saw the
2005 parliamentary elections as a means to confirm his political power, since Carlos Menem's defection in the second round of the 2003 presidentials did not allow Kirchner to receive the large amount of votes that surveys predicted. Kirchner explicitly stated that the 2005 elections would be a mid-term
plebiscite for his administration, and actively participated in the campaign in most provinces. Due to internal disagreements, the Justicialist Party did not present as such on the polls, but split into several factions. Kirchner's
Frente para la Victoria (
FPV, Front for Victory) was overwhelmingly the winner, following which many supporters of other factions (mostly those led by former presidents Eduardo Duhalde and Carlos Menem) migrated to the FPV.
On
15 December 2005, following
Brazil's initiative, Kirchner announced the cancellation of Argentina's debt to the IMF in full and in a single payment, in a historical decision which generated controversy at the time (see
Argentine debt restructuring).
Personal style and ideology
Kirchner's resistance to international financial institutions such as the IMF and his objections to free markets has surprised some observers. He has been encouraged in this regard by such figures as the iconoclastic ex-
World Bank economist
Joseph Stiglitz, who opposes the IMF's measures as recessionary and has urged Argentina to take an independent path. In doing so, Kirchner has broken ranks with recent and current Latin American leaders such as Peru's
Alejandro Toledo, who maintain a center-right economic policy. In this context, Kirchner can best be seen as part of a spectrum of new Latin American leaders, spanning from
Chávez in
Venezuela to
Lula in
Brazil and
Tabaré Vázquez in
Uruguay, who are actively searching for an alternative to the
Washington consensus, which in the eyes of many has proven to be an unsuccessful model for economic development in the region.
Others, like
The Economist, have noted that Kirchner, Chávez, Mexico fomer leftist presidential hopeful and street protester,
Andrés Manuel López Obrador and in Peru, former presidential candidate
Ollanta Humala all correspond to the Latin American tradition of
populism. Many differentiate the new emerging Latin American leaders and their policies, as in a cover story the
Financial Times in May 2006, reflected that "
Venezuela,
Argentina and
Bolivia are seen as forming a radical populist grouping that contrasts with the more moderate left-wing governments of
Chile and
Uruguay". Kircher increasing alignment with
Chávez became evident when during a visit to Venezuela on July 2006 he attended a military parade alongside Bolivian president
Evo Morales, in that occasion Mr Chávez called for a defensive military pact between the armies of the region with a common doctrine and organization. Mr. Kirchner stated in an speech to the Venezuela national assembly that
Venezuela represented a true democracy fighting for the dignity of its people.
Kirchner's preference for more state involvement in the economy can be seen in measures such as a
ban on beef exports in an attempt to control domestic beef prices, the nationalization of
Aguas Argentinas, a water company controlled by the French group
SUEZ which had been privatized during Menem's administration, or the continued policy of intervention by the Central Bank in the exchange market to maintain a high dollar-peso rate.
The opposition questions the fact that, despite controlling the majority in both chambers of Congress, Kirchner repeatedly prefers to use the legislative faculties of the executive branch, legislating through
decree-laws instead of following the ordinary procedures for enacting laws. Since he came into office until may of 2006, from a total of 337 pieces of legislation originating in the executive branch that could be enacted by decree, Kirchner sent only 136 to Congress to be debated, while the other 201 were promulgated by decree. This implies 67 decrees per year, only comparable to the 545 decrees promulgated by Carlos Menem during his ten years of tenure (54.5 per year).
Kirchner has been accused of
cronyism for his tendency to appoint friends and family members to high level cabinet positions (for instance, appointing his sister
Alicia Kirchner as Minister of Social Development). Others have criticized Kirchner for his personalistic and confrontational style, which they view as a way of obtaining his political goals.
His collaborators and others who support and stand politically close to Kirchner are known informally as
pingüinos ("penguins"), alluding to his birthplace in the cold southern region of Argentina. Some media and sectors of society have also resorted to using the letter
K as a shorthand for Kirchner and his policies (as seen, for example, in the controversial group of supporters self-styled
Los Jóvenes K, that is "The Young K").
*
Office of the President*
Jóvenes K â€" Official website.
* Washington Times. 22 July 2003.
Argentine leader defies pessimism.* BBC News. 25 May 2004.
Argentine revival marks Kirchner first year.* Guareschi, Roberto. 5 Nov 2005. "Not quite the Evita of Argentine legend".
New Straits Times, p. 21.
* Buenos Aires Herald.
March of the Penguins..
* ClarÃn. 18 January 2006.
Un combate entre "pingüinos" por la estratégica secretarÃa de Agricultura.* The Economist. 12 April 2006.
Latin America - The return of populism.* Financial Times. 8 May 2006.
Kirchner's image thrives on his rough approach.* BBC News. 18 April 2006.
Analysis: Latin America's new left axis.* La Nacion. 5 July 2006. Kirchner dejó un fuerte apoyo a Chávez y se llevó un gesto por Malvinas
