Argentina’s first lady sweeps to presidency

BUENOS AIRES—First lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will become Argentina’s first elected woman leader, after easily winning a presidential vote largely centered on her husband’s economic successes.
Fernandez’s margin of victory, seen as the largest in the history of Argentine democracy, will allow her to avoid a runoff vote next month. With ballots counted at 96 percent of polling stations, Fernandez had 44.86 percent support, followed by another female candidate, former lawmaker Elisa Carrio, who had 22.98 percent and conceded defeat late on Sunday.
“This is a triumph for all Argentines,” Fernandez told cheering supporters at her campaign headquarters, in a message that also acknowledged the challenges that lie ahead. “Instead of putting us in a position of privilege, it gives us bigger responsibilities and greater obligations,” she said, as her husband, President Nestor Kirchner, looked on.
The ruling Front for Victory coalition, an offshoot of the Peronist party, secured a majority in both houses of Congress and dominated in the election of eight provincial governors. The Kirchners are Argentina’s undisputed power couple and have been called “the Clintons of the South.”
Fernandez, a 54-year-old lawyer, is one of her husband’s key aides and a longtime senator. Voters weary of Argentina’s repeated boom-and-bust cycles hope she will advance the economic course set by her husband. After a deep 2001-02 economic crisis, South America’s second-largest economy has expanded at China-style rates since Kirchner came to office four years ago.
Growth has topped 8 percent a year, driven by strong consumer spending and agricultural exports. “This is the best thing that could have happened to Argentina,” middle-aged grocer Ahmad Alauy said on Monday. “It means her husband’s project can continue.” But even as Fernandez inherits the economic boom overseen by her husband, she also faces mounting concern about high inflation, energy shortages and a growing perception among some Argentines that the Kirchners may have accumulated too much power.
“Cristina said the votes for her represent an enormous challenge and responsibility. Opposition leaders should feel the same challenge and responsibility to build an alternative ... and needed balance in this poor but noble democracy,” columnist Eduardo van der Kooy wrote in leading daily Clarin.—Agencies