Argentina: Cristina Fernández re-elected as President

December 28, 2011

Argentina held national presidential and legislative elections on 23 October 2011. Incumbent president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner secured a second term in office after the Front for Victory won just over half of the seats in the National Congress. Fernandez has deepened the policies started in 2003 by her husband and predecessor as president, Nestor Kirchner, whose death last year played a key role in reversing her political fortunes. She has built on an outpouring of public sympathy following his death. She is Argentina’s first elected female president, and the second female president ever to serve (after Isabel Martínez de Perón, 1974–1976). In 2008, she was ranked by the magazine Forbes as thirteenth in the list of the 100 most powerful women in the world, being the second female head of government in the list below Angela Merkel. In 2010, she was ranked by the magazine Time as second in the list of the Top 10 Female Leaders of the World.