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BUENOS AIRES - Argentine first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner rode an economic boom and her husband's popularity to victory in a presidential election yesterday to become the country's first elected woman leader.
Kirchner, a glamorous lawyer and centre-left senator, will take over from her husband, President Nestor Kirchner, in December in a rare power handover between democratically elected spouses.
Partial results showed her with 44 per cent support and a wide lead, enough to claim victory and avoid a runoff vote. Her main rivals, former lawmaker Elisa Carrio and former economy minister Roberto Lavagna, both conceded defeat.
Kirchner, 54, ran an effortless campaign without a primary, a candidates' debate or concrete policy outlines. She instead met foreign leaders and trumpeted lower poverty rates since her husband took office four years ago.
"We've won by a wide margin," she told joyous followers in a speech at her campaign bunker yesterday.
"I want to call you to the future because since 2003 we have advanced a lot against poverty and unemployment."
Her husband is credited with leading Argentina's recovery from an economic meltdown in 2001-2002. The crisis devastated a proud middle class that long distinguished Argentina, a leading grains exporter, from its Latin American neighbours and led it to default on US$100 billion in debt.
"This country was destroyed. It was a country in default, with millions of people unemployed. Suddenly, everything changed. She's going to take the policies of this Government even further," said Lilia Balencia, 65, a social worker celebrating at Kirchner's campaign bunker.
Although a fiscal conservative, Nestor Kirchner increased the state's role in the economy, reversing many privatisations from the 1990s and placing price controls on utility rates and fuel prices. Kirchner is likely to continue those policies but is not expected to move further left and is a moderate compared with socialist leaders in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Much more comfortable on the diplomatic stage than her travel-shy husband, Kirchner will remain friendly with anti-US President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela while trying to improve relations with Washington.
In electing Kirchner, Argentines opted for continuity, a sign of a deep fear of change after decades on an economic rollercoaster that has wiped out life savings time and again.
The bulk of Kirchner's support came from poor people who think her husband has improved their lives, partly through new pensions and tax breaks.
But top opposition candidate Carrio took almost one of four votes nationwide and gave Kirchner a run for her money in middle class and urban areas like the capital Buenos Aires.
Opposition candidates were not able to capitalise on corruption scandals involving Nestor Kirchner officials, or on Argentines' top concern: the steeply rising cost of living.
Kirchner was a leftist student activist in the 1970s and has been a political junkie ever since. The mother of two has said even her family took a back seat to her ideals of bringing greater social equality to Argentina.
The opposition criticised her expensive clothes and warned that a continuation of her husband's price freezes and state intervention in the economy will make things worse for the poor, not better, by frightening off investors.
Argentina has had a woman president before, but she was not elected. Isabel Peron, the third wife of former President Juan Peron, succeeded him when he died in 1974 and ruled for two years until she was ousted in a military coup.
- Reuters
