Mid-term elections in Argentina have dealt a severe blow to the political fortunes of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband Nestor Kirchner, the former President. In a humiliating defeat for Argentina’s first couple, her powerful husband and predecessor, former President Néstor Kirchner, was upset in a high-profile congressional race in Buenos Aires province. Furthermore, the Kirchner wing of the dominant Peronist Party lost its majority in the Argentine Congress.
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Néstor Kirchner, the former president of Argentina, resigned his post as leader of the Peronist Party on Monday, a day after he and his supporters suffered a crushing defeat in national congressional elections.
The resignation was a stunning admission of defeat for a combative and often stubborn politician who is widely viewed to be deeply involved in running the government led by his wife, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Combined with their loss of both houses of Congress, Mr. Kirchner’s defeat appears to have dashed any dreams the couple had of extending their political dynasty, and put Argentina’s presidency up for grabs in the 2011 elections.
Analysts said the results of the election on Sunday would restore some balance to Argentine politics and could increase the country’s credibility with foreign investors.
But they also leave Argentina facing continued uncertainty and potential political instability. The opposition remains fractured and the Kirchners will maintain control of Congress until December.
Argentina is also facing a struggle to make payments on billions of dollars in foreign debt, economists said. “There is this impending struggle for the Argentine government to make any of its payments and meet its populist promises, while at the same time ensuring the economy can grow,” said Karen Hooper, a Latin American analyst for Stratfor, a Texas-based global intelligence company.
The election became a referendum on the couple’s leadership. Mr. Kirchner ran for the lower house of Congress in a bid to resuscitate the flagging administration of his wife, who has struggled to muster more than a 30 percent approval rating in opinion polls since taking over in December 2007.
But Mr. Kirchner’s gamble to run in Buenos Aires Province, the country’s most populated, backfired when he narrowly lost a high-profile race against a millionaire businessman, Francisco de Narváez, a congressman from a rival faction within the Kirchners’ Peronist Party.
In the end, not only were the Kirchners swept in the major provinces of Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Mendoza, but they even lost in Mr. Kirchner’s home state, Santa Cruz. Nationally, they won just 29.6 percent of the vote, less than most analysts had predicted.
“Néstor Kirchner just died politically,” said Elisa Carrió, a longtime opposition leader who ran against Mrs. Kirchner for president in 2007.