Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Coasts to Victory in Argentina

Argentina’s president accomplished what was widely expected on Sunday when she cruised to a reelection win. With nearly 80 percent of votes counted, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner received almost 54 percent of the vote, and well above the 45 percent required to avoid a runoff. She also gave the opposition candidates a sound thumping: ex-Governor of Santa Fe Hermes Binner of the Progressive Front came in a distant second and more than 35 points behind her. She becomes the first female president to win reelection in Latin America and, with over half the votes tallied, won the highest percentage of votes since the 1983 return to democracy. With a third of seats up for vote in the Senate and half in the Chamber of Deputies, her coalition is also expected to recoup losses sustained in the 2009 mid-term election and regain control of the Argentine Congress. Given that country’s GDP growth rate was above 8 percent last year, observers say the strong economic growth under the watch of her administration gave the president—commonly referred to as CFK, or Cristina—a boost at the polls. But critics continue to warn about capital flight and that official statistics mask high inflation rates.

Fernández de Kirchner’s landslide win for a second, four-year term came as little surprise. The president also prevailed in the country’s August primaries and polled well ahead of her rivals before the election. Still, the president has come a long way compared to low approval ratings and political woes that marked the earlier part of her tenure. A long-time politician, Fernández de Kirchner served as a Peronist senator and took over the presidential reins from her husband, Néstor Kirchner, when she won the 2007 election. But she soon found herself in a battle with Argentina’s powerful agricultural sector over export taxes she imposed after taking office. Her vice president, Julio Cobos, cast the deciding congressional vote forcing her to rescind the export tax. With her popularity flagging, her party lost control of Congress in the 2009 legislative vote, when Néstor Kirchner also lost the race for a congressional seat in Buenos Aires province.

Yet, the president saw her political fate turn around, partly due to an outpouring of sympathy following the sudden death of her husband a year ago, but also stemming from Argentina’s economic gains and her government’s social programs. As GlobalPost’s Stephanie Garlow points out, those factors, along with a weak and divided political opposition, aided CFK’s resurgence. At the same time, the president shed some of her own political troubles by dumping Cobos as her running mate in favor of Economy Minister Amado Boudou—a move viewed as signaling her intention of continuing an export-driven economic model. Also expected to continue is Argentina’s high economic growth rate; the International Monetary Fund predicts GDP growth will weigh in at 8 percent for 2011.

But some critics warn of economic woes simmering not so deep beneath the surface that Fernández de Kirchner may have to face during her second term (which starts in December). The government’s national statistics agency keeps saying inflation runs below 8 percent while economists keep putting the figure higher than 20 percent. Financial Times’ beyondbrics blog cautions that Argentina also continues to experience capital flight, “surely a vote of no confidence in the government,” with Argentines pulling almost $10 billion out of the country in the first half of 2011, leading to a slump in the peso’s value.

For now, the reelected president is indicating that she’ll stay the course. “With what’s happening in the world, you have to feel very proud,” she told supporters after she cast a ballot on Sunday. “After a lifetime of pushing those ideas, we now see that they were not a mistake and that we are on the right path.”

Learn more:

• Read AS/COA news analyses of the August primaries and the selection of Minister Boudou as the president's running mate.
• Access coverage at the Argentina Elections/Elecciones Argentinas website.
• Website of Argentina's electoral agency.
• La Nacíon offers an interactive map of electoral results.