Argentina’s Kirchner steamrolls to presidential reelection win

In January 2010 the Mitofsky consulting firm concluded that Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had the lowest approval ratings among leaders from across the Americas. Few would have predicted at the time that less than two years later she would be reelected to the presidency by a landslide.

Kirchner easily won in the first round of Sunday’s presidential elections with approximately 54% of voters selecting her, nearly 40% more than second-place candidate Hermes Binner. Her margin of victory is the greatest since Argentina returned to civilian rule in 1983 and she will also becomes the first female Latin American president to serve to consecutive terms.

Thousands of Kirchner supporters gathered last night in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo during her victory speech. "Count on me to continue pursuing the project…All I want is to keep collaborating ... to keep Argentina growing. I want to keep changing history", said Kirchner according to BBC News. She also made an emotional reference to her late husband, ex-president Nestor Kirchner, who she called the “man who transformed Argentina.”

Kirchner’s victory extended beyond her reelection; the Kirchnerismo political faction regained the majority in the legislature that it lost two years ago. Most of the winning gubernatorial candidates represented the Kirchner-led Frente para la Victoria (Front for Victory). Nevertheless, the opposition did produce one major surprise when the Socialist candidate Binner received more votes for the presidency than more established names like former interim president Eduardo Duhalde.

Kirchner’s decisive win could be attributed to various factors including the deep fragmentation within the right-wing Peronists, the creation of popular social programs and widespread sympathy for her after her husband passed away unexpectedly one year ago this month. Strong economic growth also worked to her advantage though an article in The Guardian noted that it might soon become a liability for the reelected presidenta:

(Kirchner and Vice President-elect Amado Boudou) have championed an Argentinian solution to countries facing a debt crisis: nationalize private pensions and use central bank reserves to increase government spending rather than impose austerity measures, and force bondholders to suffer before ordinary citizens.

The candidates debated how prepared Argentina was for a global slowdown. Declining commodity and trade revenue will make it harder to raise incomes to keep up with inflation. Argentina's central bank is under pressure to spend reserves to maintain the peso's value against the dollar, while also guarding against currency shocks that could threaten Argentina's all-important trade with Brazil.

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English

Online Sources- Clarin, Diario Los Andes, BBC News, The Guardian, noticias24.com, elecciones201.gov.ar

Daily Headlines: November 2, 2010

* Colombia: Congrats to Edgar Renteria who was named as the World Series Most Valuable Player as the San Francisco Giants won their first championship in over fifty years.

* Mexico: Four U.S. citizens were killed in separate incidents in northern Mexico over the weekend.

* Argentina: "It's my most painful moment," said President Cristina Fernandez in a nationally televised speech last night regarding the sudden death of her husband.

* Cuba: Local Catholic Church officials said that the government would release a political prisoner held behind bars since 1985.

* Haiti: How did a “South Asian strain” of cholera arrive in Haiti to infect and kill over 330 people?

* Venezuela: Political relations between Venezuela and Colombia are expected to keep improving, as Hugo Chavez will host Juan Manuel Santos in Caracas today.

Image – The Telegraph (“Let the party begin: San Francisco players celebrate after beating the Texas Rangers Photo: REUTERS.”)
Online Sources- Reuters, El Universal, CNN, BBC News, The Latin Americanist, USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: October 29, 2010

* Argentina: Will the death on Wednesday of former president Nestor Kirchner ease tensions between Argentina and Britain over the Falklands?

* Mexico: At least eleven people died in a pair of attacks in Ciudad Juarez and Mexico City.

* Central America: A minor diplomatic spat has developed over the alleged incursion of Costa Rican police into Nicaraguan territory.

* Brazil: The offshore Libra field may hold as much as 16 million barrels of oil, which would make it the biggest crude find in the Americas since 1976.

Image – ABC News (“Tens of thousands of Argentines paid tribute on Thursday to Nestor Kirchner, shown in this 2005 file photo, the powerful former leader whose death robbed President Cristina Fernandez of her husband and most trusted ally.”)
Online Sources- The Telegraph, BBC News, LAHT, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: October 28, 2010

Note: Blogging will be very light today. Therefore we present an expanded edition of today’s “Daily Headlines”.

* Guatemala: Vice President Rafael Espada claimed that about 1500 Guatemalans, not roughly 700 as initially claimed by the U.S., were victims of secret medical experiments on venereal diseases.

* Argentina: “Viva Nestor” and “Cristina you are not alone” were just some of the notes left on the gates of the Casa Rosada presidential palace by Argentines mourning the death of ex-president Nestor Kirchner.

* Mexico: Current president Felipe Calderon and his predecessor Vicente Fox find themselves on opposite sides of the California Proposition 19 debate.

* Cuba: Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr may’ve pled guilty and avoided trial yet his sentencing hearing has become a contentious affair.

* Haiti: The country’s cholera outbreak has killed at least 300 people and has spread to areas closer to the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

* Colombia: Major regional air carrier Lan Airlines will expand after buying Colombia’s Aires for over $32 million.

Image – CNN (Secret experiments on syphilis and gonorrhea were conducted on hundreds of Guatemalans in the 1940s. They were similar to another infamous example of U.S.-conducted experimentation: the Tuskegee experiment pictured above.)
Online Sources- Christian Science Monitor, CBC, The Latin Americanist, Reuters, Xinhua,
The Tico Times, Bloomberg,

Argentina: Ex-president Kirchner dies

Nestor Kirchner, former Argentine president and husband to current head of state Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, died this morning of a heart attack.

Kirchner, who had undergone a pair of arterial procedures earlier this year, passed away in his home province of Santa Cruz despite the intervention of medical staff to revive him. The former president between 2003 and 2007 died reportedly with his wife by his side after he was rushed to a nearby hospital.

Numerous regional and world leaders sent messages of condolences to the Kirchner family and solidarity to the Argentine people. Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of mourning over the “very sad” news of Kirchner’s death. A moment of silence was held at a meeting of the Organization of American States while Uruguayan president Jose Mujica philosophically said “life goes on, but it is a reminder to everyone that life can be taken from us at any moment."

Prior to his presidency Kirchner served as Santa Cruz governor, and at the time of his death he was serving as both a congressman and as president of the UNASUR bloc. As UNASUR head he helped broker a meeting earlier this year where the Colombian and Venezuelan government agreed to reestablish diplomatic ties.

His time in the Casa Rosada was defined by overseeing Argentina’s economic recovery after a profound crisis that he blamed on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “dictatorship”. He helped bring some political stability after the country had five presidents in a tumultuous two weeks and he spearheaded justice reforms that led to human rights trials of members of the “Dirty War” junta.

His detractors, however, criticized him for consolidating political power for himself and his wife as well as his fiery speeches against figures such as political elites and the IMF. Other opponents were upset with his kirchnerismo populism that included raising the minimum wage and pensions while also increasing government control of the economy.

Kirchner was said to be a candidate in next year’s presidential elections and his death was described by The Economist as “a political cataclysm.” Argentina is a “country that seems to be condemned to living between tragedy and drama” wrote Eduardo van der Kooy in Clarin.com regarding the nation’s unsure political future.

Kirchner’s body will be in view at a public wake on Thursday at the Casa Rosada presidential palace, reportedly the first time this will be done for a former president.

Image- Al Jazeera English
Online Sources- The Telegraph, Clarin.com, El Universal, BBC News, thisislondon.co.uk, BusinessWeek, The Guardian, The Economist

Internet Challenge: Does Anybody Like 'South of the Border'?

Reading Foreign Policy's not-too-favorable review of the new Oliver Stone film South of the Border got me wondering: does anybody who's serious about Latin American affairs think it's a legit film?

The roundup:

Washington Post: "In 'South of the Border,' Stone makes no pretense of objectivity."

New York Times: "'South of the Border' is a valuable, if naïvely idealistic, introductory tutorial on a significant international trend."

Forbes: (Not shocking) "a bit of agitprop with only an ideological payoff likely for the lefty auteur and his writers, Tariq Ali and Mark Weisbrot."

Although The Times also notes that "There are no serious interviews with the poor to determine how everyday lives have changed under these socialist governments, and there is no mention of the human rights abuses in Venezuela reported by Amnesty International."

NPR is less harsh on content but doesn't praise Stone heavily for his filmmaking style:

"Say what you will about political bias — and it's certainly fair to accuse Stone of filming Latin American leaders through rose-colored lenses — the portrait he paints of the contemporary social movement known as the Bolivarian Revolution (after Simon Bolivar's 19th century struggle to free Latin America from Spanish rule) isn't giddy or simple-minded."

It's worth pointing out in the sake of fairness that I've listed reviews of major US media outlets, the ones that Stone attacks in his film as willfully portraying an inaccurate, easy-to-consume picture of Chavez the tyrant lurking "South of the Border."

46 on Metacritic, btw.

Image Source: New York Times

Online Sources: Foreign Policy, New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, Forbes, Metacritic

Daily Headlines: May 5, 2010

* Latin America: Former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner was elected to head the twelve-nation UNASUR political bloc.

* U.S.: In an unanimous decision the Supreme Court ruled against the family of a Salvadoran-born immigrant who tried to sue government physicians for medical neglect.

* Dominican Republic: Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is expected to finalize a deal today for 49% control of the lone Dominican oil refinery.

* Colombia: Could Canada’s free trade agreement with Colombia serve as an example for legislators in the U.S.?

Image – MercoPress
Online Sources- Indpendent.co.uk, Los Angeles Times, Dominican Today, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: July 29, 2009

* Argentina: The personal wealth of Argentina’s power couple has come under increased scrutiny as the country’s economic woes worsen.

* Nicaragua: Nicaraguan Ernesto Cardenal won the Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize and used his award speech to blast President Daniel Ortega.

* Mexico: Mexicans could soon be obligated to carry a national ID card which will include fingerprints and a retina scan.

* U.S.: Health authorities in New York warned against the use of certain beauty products imported from the Dominican Republic that contain dangerous chemicals but are popular in Latino neighborhoods.

Image- BBC News (Argentina’s president and First Husband in happier times).
Online Sources- Guardian UK, Xinhua, LAHT, UPI

Argentine elections stun Kirchners

Mel Zelaya wasn’t the only Latin American leader to have a lousy weekend.

Sunday’s congressional elections served as a stunning setback for President Cristina Kirchner and her ex-presidential husband. Infighting within the Peronist Party led them to lose its majority in both legislative chambers as well as local seats in Buenos Aires and even the Kirchners' home province of Santa Cruz. After losing his own bid for a seat in Congress, Nestor Kirchner quit as leader of the Justicialists while the president tried to save face by emphasizing “consensus and agreements in order to govern.”

For a greater insight into Sunday’s elections and the future of Argentina, Rice University professor of political science Mark Jones was gracious enough to grant us an interview.

The Latin Americanist: Surely the biggest losers of Sunday's local elections in Argentina are the Kirchners. But which political figures could be labeled as the "big winners.?

Mark Jones: There were three big winners on Sunday.

Most prominently, the alliance of parties backed by Vice President Julio Cobos in his home province of Mendoza won a resounding victory over the Kirchner aligned governor's (Celso Jaque) list. In the top of the ticket Senate race, Cobos' Federal Civic Front won 50% of the vote to Jaque's Front for Victory's 25%. This victory positions Cobos as the front-runner for the 2011 presidential election from within the non-Peronist opposition.

Another big winner on Sunday was Senator Carlos Reutemann. Reutemann, a moderately anti-Kirchner Peronist, kept his presidential aspirations alive by narrowly defeating Socialist Rubén Giustiniani (the shadow candidate of Santa Fe Governor Hermes Binner) in the Santa Fe Senate elections, 42% to 41%. Reutemann's performance was weakened by the presence of a Kirchner-aligned Peronist in the race, who siphoned off 8% of the Peronist vote (much of which would have otherwise gone to Reutemann).

Dissident Peronist Francisco De Narváez should also be considered a big winner, defeating former President Néstor Kirchner in the Province of Buenos Aires Chamber of Deputies election 35% to 32% (De Narváez and Kirchner headed the Union PRO and Justicialista Front for Victory lists respectively). Through this victory De Narváez has positioned himself well for a run at the office of Governor in the Province of Buenos Aires in 2011. However the road to La Plata (capital of the Province of Buenos Aires) will not be free of obstacles for De Narváez, with Cabinet Chief Sergio Massa representing a formidable rival for the governorship in 2011.

Lastly, while not reaching the same level of salience as the three above-mentioned victories, on Sunday several governors ratified their dominance within their respective province. For instance, the Peronist Governor of Chubut, Mario Das Neves (a dark horse candidate for the presidency in 2011) can be considered a winner due to the manner in which he demonstrated his absolute control of his province. Das Neves' Front for Integration list won 56% of the vote, more than three times that won by the runner-up Radical Civic Union (18%). A similar level of dominance was demonstrated by other governors, including Peronists José Alperovich (Tucumán), José Luis Gioja (San Juan), Alberto Rodríguez Saá (San Luis), and pro-Kirchner Radical Gerardo Zamora (Santiago del Estero).

TLA: Did President Cristina Fernandez miscalcuate by moving the elections up from October?

MJ: President Fernández did not miscalculate, simply because she does not make the important political decisions. Her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner, and the real powerbroker and decisionmaker, definitely miscalculated, but principally in terms of campaign strategy, by turning the election in the Province of Buenos Aires (in particular) as well as those (to a lesser extent) in the interior provinces into a referendum on him and the Kirchner Government. The electoral results demonstrated substantially more antipathy towards the Kirchners within the electorate than had been estimated by the public opinion polls. As a result of Kirchner's referendum approach to the election, the disparate opposition (principally the pan-Radical opposition alliance and the alliance of dissident Peronists with Capital Federal "Governor" Mauricio Macri) did not need to develop a credible or effective campaign message based on policy proposals, but rather (with some important provincial exceptions) could campaign simply based on their representing a vote "against" the Kirchners. As things turned out, from Kirchner's home province of Santa Cruz (where the Kirchner list was defeated, 43% to 41%) in the South to the Province of Buenos Aires on the Eastern coast, to Mendoza in the Andes, a majority of Argentine citizens chose to cast a vote against the Kirchners, handing them an embarrassing defeat with nearly two and a half years remaining in the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

In regard to the decision to move the elections to October, that probably was not a miscalculation, since waiting until October would have resulted in a further erosion of support (due principally to the deepening economic crisis in Argentina) as well as would have allowed the opposition to better organize itself to compete in the elections.

TLA: Ex-president Kirchner has already quit as head of the Peronistas but what should the current president's next political move be?

MJ: The Peronist Party (Partido Justicialista) formal party structure is an empty shell that is only as important as the person running the show. For the time being Néstor Kirchner will still be the de facto leader of the Peronist movement, albeit in a position where he has to increasingly negotiate with the major powerbrokers within Peronism (principally the Peronist governors).

TLA: Is the Peronist Party dead or will it be able to soon regroup?

MJ: Peronism is a very resilient movement. It will soon regroup, most likely under the leadership of the most viable Peronist presidential candidate for the 2011 election (e.g., Carlos Reutemann). However, between now and the 2011 election will be a period of transition and tension, since while many Peronists will gravitate towards Reutemann (or another leader if that person becomes the front-runner), the fact remains that for the next two and a half years (i.e., until December 10, 2011), Néstor Kirchner will continue to control the purse strings, and therefore the governors will need to work with him in order to keep their provinces running. What we are likely to see though is a change in the relationship between Kirchner in the governors, moving from the current authoritarian top-down relationship of patron and client, to one of something approaching (though not actually reaching) that of a relationship among equals.
Barring a major surprise over the next two years, it is very likely that the next Argentine President will be Peronist, with today Carlos Reutemann representing the front-runner in the race. It is though still far too early to rule out other potential Peronist candidates such as Chubut Governor Mario Das Neves, Buenos Aires Governor Daniel Scioli (though weakened by his strong association with the Kirchners), and quasi-Peronist Mauricio Macri ("Governor" of the City of Buenos Aires).

Image- AP (“Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez gestures during a press conference at the government house in Buenos Aires, Monday, June 29, 2009. Fernandez and her predecessor and husband Nestor Kirchner suffered a stunning setback in Sunday congressional elections, seen as a referendum on their political dynasty, losing control of both houses of Congress. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)”)
Online Sources- AFP, BBC News, CNN

Weekend Headlines: May 16, 2009

* Argentina: Nestor Kirchner – Former president. Current First Hubby. Future Congressman?

* Latin America: On one hand, the budget to the struggling anti-Castro stations Radio and TV Marti is expected to be cut. On the other hand, the White House supposedly wants to launch similar stations aimed at Venezuela.

* Colombia: Rest in peace Rafael Escalona; the Colombian vallenato legend passed away this week at the age of 81.

* Peru: Some indigenous peoples upset with rumored privatization plans have reportedly declared an “insurgency” against the Peruvian government.

Image- AP (“Argentina's former President Nestor Kirchner, bottom left, delivers a speech as his wife Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez, top second from left, and his son Maximiliano, top left, seen on a video screen, during his launching congressional campaign in La Plata, Thursday, May 14, 2009”).
Online Sources- El Universal, Reuters, MSNBC, miamiherald.com

Daily Headlines: April 21, 2009

* Argentina: Will ex-president (and current First Hubby) Nestor Kirchner soon launch his candidacy for Argentina’s Congress?

* Guatemala: The increasing threat of drive-by shootings has forced officials to ban motorcyclists from carrying passengers.

* Chile: Three ex-army officials including a retired general were indicted in the murders of fourteen people during the dictatorship of former strongman Augusto Pinochet.

* Mexico: Mexico’s Roman Catholic archdiocese warned that priests have been targeted by drug gangs after one archbishop claimed to know the whereabouts of one of the country’s most wanted drug capos.

Image- New Statesman
Online Sources- Reuters, AP, MSNBC, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: December 25, 2008

* Vatican City: Good thing - Pope Benedict XVI’s Christmas Midnight Mass highlighted the abuses faced by children around the world.

Bad thing – The Pope gave a speech on Monday blasting gays and compared the defense of heterosexuality to “saving rain forests from destruction.”

* Costa Rica: President Oscar Arias suggested that business execs should give up their salaries in order to improve the nation's economy.

* Ecuador: Foreign Minister Fander Falconi said that Colombia must satisfy “minimum demands requested by Ecuador” in order for bilateral diplomatic ties to be reestablished.

* Argentina: Former president and current presidential hubby Nestor Kirchner is being investigated on alleged corruption charges.

Image- CNN (Pope Benedict XVI blessed several children during Christmas Midnight Mass.)
Online Sources- Xinhua, BBC News, AHN, AP