{{Infobox settlement |official_name = Asunción |native_name = La Muy Noble y Leal Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Asunción |nickname = Mother of Cities |motto = |image_skyline = |imagesize = 250px |image_caption = |image_flag = Flag of Asunción.svg |image_seal = Escudo de Asunción (Paraguay).svg |image_seal size = 75px |image_skyline = Asuncion compilado.jpg |imagesize = 360px | image_caption = On the top:the Palacio de los López, the National Pantheon of the Heroes and the Mariscal López avenue. Medium: The "Cabildo de Asuncion" , the Cathedral of Asuncion , and the Hotel Guaraní. Below: Asuncion by night , Moderns buildings , and Asuncion downtown. |map_caption = |pushpin_map = Paraguay |pushpin_label_position = bottom |pushpin_map_caption = Location in Paraguay |coordinates_region = PY |subdivision_type = Country |subdivision_name = |subdivision_type1 = autonomous capital district |subdivision_name1 = Gran Asunción |leader_title = Intendant |leader_name = Hugo Piccinini |established_title = Founded |established_date = August 15, 1537 |area_magnitude = |area_total_sq_mi = 45.2 |area_total_km2 = 117 |area_land_sq_mi = |area_land_km2 = |area_water_sq_mi = |area_water_km2 = |area_water_percent = |area_urban_sq_mi = |area_urban_km2 = |area_metro_sq_mi = |area_metro_km2 = 1000 |population_as_of = 2009 This fort became a city with the establishment of the Cabildo (civilian administration) on 16 September 1541.

In 1541, natives destroyed Buenos Aires, and the Spaniards fled to Asunción. Thus, the city became the center of a large Spanish colonial province comprising part of Brazil, present-day Paraguay and northeastern Argentina: the Giant Province of the Indies. In 1603 Asunción was the seat of the First Synod of Asunción, which set guidelines for the evangelization of the natives in their lingua franca, Guaraní.

In 1731, an uprising under José de Antequera y Castro was one of the first rebellions against Spanish colonial rule. The uprising failed, but it was the first sign of the independent spirit that was growing among the criollos, mestizos and natives of Paraguay. The event influenced the independence of Paraguay, which then materialised in 1811. The secret reunions between the independence leaders to plan an ambush against the Spanish Governor in Paraguay Bernardo de Velasco were held at the home of Juana María de Lara, in downtown Asunción. On the night of May 14 and May 15 the rebels succeeded and were able to force governor Velasco to surrender. Today, Lara's home is known as Casa de la Independencia (House of the Independence) and serves as a museum and historical building.

After Paraguay became independent, there was significant change in Asunción. Under the presidency of Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia roads were built throughout the city and the streets were named. However, it was during the presidency of Carlos Antonio López that Asunción (and Paraguay) progressed, as the new president implemented new economic policies. More than 400 schools, metallurgic factories and the first railroad service in South America were built during the López presidency. After López died, his son Francisco Solano López became the new president and led the country through the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance that lasted for five years. After the War of the Triple Alliance (1865–70), Asunción was occupied by Brazilian troops until 1876.

Many historians have claimed that this war provoked a steady downfall of the city and country, since it massacred two thirds of the country's population. Progress slowed down greatly afterwards, and the economy remained stagnated.

After the War of the Triple Alliance, Asunción began a slow recovery attempt. Towards the end of the 19th Century and during the early years of the 20th Century, a flow of immigrants from Europe and the Ottoman Empire came to the city. This led to a change in the appearance of the city as many new buildings were built and Asunción went through an era more prosperous than any since the war.

Demographics

at night.]]

Population is approximately 520,000 people in the city proper. Roughly 30% of Paraguay's 6 million people live within Greater Asunción. Sixty-five percent of the total population in the city are under the age of 30.

The population has increased greatly during the last few decades as a consequence of internal migration from other Departments of Paraguay, at first because of the economic boom in the 1970s, and later because of economic recession in the countryside. The adjacent cities in the Gran Asunción area, such as Luque, Lambaré, San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora and Mariano Roque Alonso, have absorbed most of this influx due to the low cost of the land and easy access to Asunción. The city has ranked as the least expensive city to live in for five years running by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. These cities have also experienced significant economic growth and expansion.

Geography

Asunción is located between the parallels 25º 15' and 25º 20' of south latitude and between the meridians 57º 40' and 57º 30' of west longitude. The city sits on the left bank of the Paraguay River, almost at the confluence of this river with the River Pilcomayo. The Paraguay River and the Bay of Asunción in the northwest separate the city from the Occidental Region of Paraguay and Argentina in the south part of the city. The rest of the city is surrounded by the Central Department.

With its location along the Paraguay River, the city offers many landscapes; it spreads out over gentle hills in a pattern of rectangular blocks. Places such as Cerro Lambaré, a hill located in Lambaré, offer a spectacular show in the springtime because of the blossoming lapacho trees in the area. Parks such as Parque Independencia and Parque Carlos Antonio López offer large areas of typical Paraguayan vegetation and are frequented by tourists. There are several small hills and slightly elevated areas throughout the city, including Cabará, Clavel, Tarumá, Cachinga, and Tacumbú, among others.

Climate

Asunción features a tropical savanna climate that borders on a humid subtropical climate. Asunción generally has a relatively short dry season that spans from June to September and a wet season that covers the remainder of the year. The climate of Asunción can be described as hot and humid for most of the year. During the wet season, Asunción is generally hot and humid though towards the end of this season, it becomes noticeably cooler. In contrast, Asunción's dry season is pleasantly mild.

Neighborhoods

The neighborhoods of Asunción, called "barrios" by their residents, are territorial subdivisions established by law.

The city of Asunción is composed of the following neighborhoods:

{| |- |valign="top"|

Campo Grande

Carlos A. López

Catedral

Ciudad Nueva

Ricardo Brugada, also known as La Chacarita

Dr. Francia

El Palomar

Gral. Díaz

Herrera

Hipódromo

Itá Pytá Punta

Itá Enramada

Jara

La Encarnación

La Residenta

Loma Pytá

Las Carmelitas

Las Lomas

Las Mercedes

Los Laureles

Manora

Mbocayaty

Mburucuyá

Madame Lynch

Nazareth

Barrio Obrero

|width="50"|  |valign="top"|

Pinoza

Republicano

Recoleta

Roberto L. Pettit

Sajonia

Salvador del Mundo

San Antonio

San Cristóbal

San Jorge

San Rafael

San Roque

San Pablo

San Vicente

Santa Ana

Santa María

Santísima Trinidad

Tablada Nueva

Tacumbú

Tembetary

Tuyucuá

Varadero

Villa Antelco

Villa Aurelia

Villa Morra

Villa Victoria

Ytay

Zeballos Cué

|}

Ycua Saty

Education

The literacy rate is 95 percent, the highest in Paraguay. The number of schools has doubled since 1982 . Student numbers have doubled since 1962.

Schools

The city has a large number of both public and private schools. The best-known public schools are the Colegio Nacional de la Capital (which is one of the oldest schools in the city, founded after the Triple Alliance War in 1877), Colegio Presidente Franco and Colegio Nacional Asunción Escalada. The best-known private schools are Colegio Inmaculado Corazón de María, Salesianito, Colegio Cristo Rey (a Jesuit private school), Colegio Internacional (an American missionary school), Colegio San José (Catholic school), Colegio Santa Teresa de Jesús (Catholic school) American School of Asunción, Colegio Dante Alighieri (Italian private school), Colegio Santa Clara (Franciscan School), Colegio Goethe (German school) and Colegio de la Asunción (Catholic school).

Universities

The main universities in the city are the Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (private Catholic university) and the Universidad Nacional de Asunción (state-run). The Católica has a small campus in the downtown area next to the Cathedral and a larger campus in the Santa Ana neighborhood, outwards toward the adjoining city of Lambaré, while the Universidad Nacional has its main campus in the city of San Lorenzo, some 5 km eastward from Asunción. There are also a number of smaller privately run universities such as Uninorte, Universidad Americana and Universidad Autónoma de Asunción, among others.

Economy

Although the economically active population of Asunción has not increased significantly in the last 10 years, it has doubled since 1962.

The industrial distribution of the economically active population show that the tertiary (business and services) sector is the most important, employing 8 out of 10 of all economically active people. The secondary sector (manufacturing and construction) employs 16% of the active population, while the primary sector (farming) is practically non-existent, as Asunción is a completely urban district.

In terms of commerce, it should be noted that this sector has grown considerably in recent years stretching towards the suburbs where shopping malls and supermarkets have been built.

Paraguay's only stock exchange, the BVPASA, is located here. The city itself is listed on it, as .

In July 2008, Asunción was found to be the "cheapest city in the world" by Mercer.

Transportation

Because the Paraguay River runs right next to Asunción the city is served by a river terminal in the downtown area. This port is strategically located inside a bay and it is where most freight enters and leaves the country. There is a lesser terminal in the Sajonia neighbourhood, and a shuttle port in Ita Enramada, almost opposite the Argentine city of Clorinda.

Public transportation is used heavily and is served through buses that reach all the regions of the city and surrounding dormitory communities. The main long-distance bus terminal is on the Avenida República Argentina and its bus services connect all of the Departments of Paraguay, as well as international routes to nearby countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay.

Asunción is served by the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport located in the city of Luque.

Air

Silvio Pettirossi International Airport' is Paraguay's main national and international gateway, located at Luque, suburb of the capital Asunción. It is named after the Paraguayan aviator Silvio Pettirossi and was formerly known as Presidente Stroessner International Airport, after Paraguay's former dictator General Alfredo Stroessner.

Tourist attractions

The city is home to the Godoi Museum and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (which contains old paintings from the 19th century), the Church of La Encarnación and the Metropolitan Cathedral, and the National Pantheon of the Heroes, a smaller version of Les Invalides in Paris, where many of the nation's heroes are entombed. Other landmarks include the Palacio de los López, the old Senate building (a modern building opened to house Congress in 2003), the Catedral Metropolitana and the Casa de la Independencia (one of the few examples of colonial architecture remaining in the city).

Calle Palma is the main street downtown where several historical buildings, plazas, shops, restaurants and cafes are located. The "Manzana de la Rivera", located in front of the Presidential Palace, is a series of old traditional homes that have been restored and serve as a museum showcasing the architectural evolution of the city. The old railway station maintains the old trains that now are used in tourist trips to the cities of Luque and Areguá.

Asunción also has luxurious malls that contain shops selling well-known brands. The biggest shopping malls are Shopping del Sol, which includes a Macy's-style department store; Mariscal López Shopping, Shopping Villa Morra in the central part of the city, and the Mall Excelsior downtown.

Sports and entertainment

Football is the main sport in Paraguay, and Asunción is home to some of the most important and traditional soccer teams like Olimpia, Cerro Porteño and Club Libertad, Club Nacional, Club Guaraní, Club Sol de América, which have their own stadiums and sport facilities for affiliated members. The Defensores del Chaco stadium is the main football stadium of the country and is located in the neighbourhood of Sajonia, just a few minutes away from the centre of Asunción. Since it is a national stadium sometimes it is used for other activities such as rock concerts. Asunción is algo the heart of Paraguayan rugby union.

The nightlife revolves around two areas: one in the downtown part of the city and the other in the neighbourhoods of Manora and Las Carmelitas, a strip full of nightclubs and bars.

As it has been happening in many other parts of the world, cinemas have migrated into the main shopping malls.

Asunción also hosts several symphony orchestras, and ballet, opera and theater companies. The most well known orchestras are the City of Asunción's Symphony Orchestra (OSCA), the National Symphony Orchestra and the Northern University Symphony Orchestra. Among professional ballet companies, most renowned are the Asunción Classic and Modern Municipal Ballet, the National Ballet and the Northern University Ballet. The main opera company is the Northern University Opera Company. A long-standing theater company is Arlequín Theater Foundation's. Traditional venues include the Municipal Theater, the Paraguayan-Japanese Center, the Central Bank's Great Lyric Theater, the Juan de Salazar Cultural Center, the Americas Theater, the Tom Jobim Theater, the Arlequín Theater and the Manzana de la Rivera.

International relations

Twin towns — Sister cities

Asunción is twinned with: {| cellpadding="10" |- valign="top" | Bogota, Colombia Caracas, Venezuela La Plata, Argentina Posadas, Argentina Buenos Aires, Argentina Resistencia, Argentina Campinas, Brazil Iquique, Chile || Curitiba, Brazil São Paulo, Brazil Chiba, Japan Trujillo, Perú Chimbote, Perú Madrid, Spain || Miami-Dade County, United States New York, United States Puebla, Mexico Ciudad de México, México Taipei, Taiwan La Paz, Bolivia Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

|}

References

Notes

External links

3dLatinamerica.com Many 3-dimensional high-quality images of Asunción and other cities in Latin America (also viewable in standard 2-D)

Senatur Asunción Info (in Spanish)

Map of downtown area and a downloadable map of the city (part 1)

Municipality of Asunción

Category:Populated places in Paraguay Category:Capitals in South America Category:Populated places established in 1537 Category:Capital districts and territories Category:Districts of Paraguay Category:Departments of Paraguay

Name	Néstor Kirchner
Caption	President Néstor Kirchner in March of 2007
Nationality	Argentine
Order2	Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations
Term start2	4 May 2010
Term end2	27 October 2010
Predecessor2	Position created
Successor2	Vacant
Order1	54th President of Argentina
Term start1	25 May 2003
Term end1	10 December 2007
Vicepresident1	Daniel Scioli
Predecessor1	Eduardo Duhalde
Successor1	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Order4	Governor of Santa Cruz
Term4	10 December 1991 – 25 May 2003
Vicegovernor4	Sergio Acevedo (1991–1999) Héctor Icazuriaga (1999–2003)
Predecessor4	Ricardo del Val
Successor4	Héctor Icazuriaga
Order3	Deputy of Argentina For Buenos Aires Province
Term start3	3 December 2009
Term end3	27 October 2010
Birth date	February 25, 1950
Birth place	Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Argentina
Death date	October 27, 2010
Death place	El Calafate, Santa Cruz, Argentina
Order5	Mayor of Río Gallegos
Term start5	1987
Term end5	1991
Dead	October 27, 2010
Spouse	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Party	Front for Victory, (Justicialist Party)
Children	Máximo Kirchner Florencia Kirchner
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Alma mater	National University of La Plata
Signature	Néstor Kirchner Signature.svg

Néstor Carlos Kirchner (; 25 February 1950 27 October 2010) was an Argentine politician who served as the 54th President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 until 10 December 2007. Previously, he was Governor of Santa Cruz Province since 10 December 1991. He briefly served as Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and as a National Deputy of Argentina for Buenos Aires Province.

A Justicialist, Kirchner was little-known internationally and even domestically before his election to the Presidency, which he won by default with only 22.2 percent of the vote in the first round, when former President Carlos Menem (24.4%) withdrew from the ballotage.

Soon after taking office in May 2003, Kirchner surprised the world by standing down powerful military and police officials. Stressing the need to increase accountability and transparency in government, Kirchner overturned amnesty laws for military officers accused of torture and assassinations during the 1976–1983 "dirty war" under military rule.

On 28 October 2007, his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elected to succeed him as President of Argentina. Thus, Kirchner then became the First Gentleman of Argentina. In 2009, he was elected a National Deputy for Buenos Aires Province. He was also designated Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations on 4 May 2010.

Kirchner, who had been operated on twice in 2010 for cardiovascular problems, died at his home in El Calafate, Santa Cruz Province, on 27 October 2010, after reportedly suffering a heart attack. For more than 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of people filed past Kirchner's body lying in state, in a state funeral at the Casa Rosada attended by several Argentine personalities and eight South American leaders. and then from the airport of Río Gallegos to the cemetery. His mother, María Juana Ostoić Dragnic, is a Chilean of Croatian descent from Punta Arenas, and his father, also named Néstor, a post office official, was of Swiss German descent. He received his primary and secondary education at local public schools, and his high-school diploma from the Argentine school Colegio Nacional República de Guatemala. He was part of the third generation of the family living in Río Gallegos. He moved to La Plata to study law in 1969 at the National University of La Plata, joining the political student unions of peronist ideology located there. He was present at the Ezeiza massacre and promoted the return of Juan Domingo Perón to the country. He graduated as juris doctor in 1976 and met Cristina Fernández, marrying her six months later.

The armed conflicts between the Peronist factions such as Montoneros and the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance led them to leave the city and return to Río Gallegos. With his wife, also a lawyer and member of the Justicialist Party (PJ), he established a successful private practice.

After the downfall of the military dictatorship and restoration of democracy in 1983, Kirchner became a public officer in the provincial government. The following year, he was briefly president of the Río Gallegos social welfare fund, but was forced out by the governor because of a dispute over financial policy. The affair made him a local celebrity and laid the foundation for his career.

By 1986, Kirchner had developed sufficient political capital to be put forward as the PJ's candidate for mayor of Río Gallegos. He won the 1987 elections for this post by the very slim margin of about 100 votes. Fellow PJ member Ricardo del Val became governor, keeping Santa Cruz firmly within the hands of the PJ.

Kirchner's performance as mayor from 1987 to 1991 was satisfactory enough to the electorate and to the party to enable him to run for governor in 1991, where he won with 61% of the vote; by this time his wife was also a member of the provincial congress.

Personal style and ideology

of Venezuela, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, in a 2006 summit in Brasilia.]] discuss the Gran Gasoducto del Sur - an energy and trade integration project for South America. They met on November 21, 2005 in Venezuela.]]

Kirchner was a critic of IMF structural adjustment programs. His criticisms were supported in part by former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz, who opposes the IMF's measures as recessionary and urged Argentina to take an independent path. According to some commentators, Kirchner was seen as part of a spectrum of new Latin American leaders, including Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, who see the Washington consensus as an unsuccessful model for economic development in the region.

Kirchner's increasing alignment with Hugo Chávez became evident when during a visit to Venezuela on July 2006 he attended a military parade alongside Bolivian president Evo Morales. On that occasion Mr. Chávez called for a defensive military pact between the armies of the region with a common doctrine and organization. Kirchner stated in a speech to the Venezuela national assembly that Venezuela represented a true democracy fighting for the dignity of its people.

While a critic of neoliberalism, Kirchner did not describe himself as an opponent of markets and the private sector.

Kirchner emphasised holding businesses accountable to Argentina's democratic institutions, laws prompting environmental standards, and contractual obligations. He pledged to not open his administration to the influence of interests that "benefited from inadmissible privileges in the last decade" during Carlos Menem's presidency. These groups, according to Kirchner, were privileged by an economic model that favored "financial speculation and political subordination" of politicians to well-connected elites. For instance, in 2006, citing the alleged failure of Aguas Argentinas, a company partly owned by the French utility group Suez, to meet its contractual obligation to improve the quality of water, Kirchner terminated the company's contract with Argentina to provide drinking water to Buenos Aires.

His preference for a more active role of the state in the economy was underscored with the founding, in 2004, of ENARSA a new state owned energy company. At the June 2007 Mercosur summit, he scolded energy companies for their lack of investment in the sector and for not supporting his strategic vision for the region. He said he was losing patience with energy companies as South America's second-largest economy faced power rationing and shortages during the Southern Hemisphere winter. Price controls on energy rates instituted in 2002 are attributed to have limited investment in Argentina's energy infrastructure, risking more than four years of economic growth greater than 8 percent.

Kirchner's collaborators and others who supported him and were politically close to him were known informally as pingüinos ("penguins"), alluding to his birthplace in the cold southern region of Argentina. Some media and sectors of society also resorted to using the letter K as a shorthand for Kirchner and his policies (as seen, for example, in the controversial group of supporters self-styled Los Jóvenes K, that is "The K Youth", and in the faction of the Radical Civic Union that supports Kirchner, referred to by the media as Radicales K).

In 2008, he proposed that the Justicialist Party join the Socialist International, an international organization dedicated to left-wing and socialist politics.

Governor of Santa Cruz

When Kirchner assumed the governorship, the province of Santa Cruz (pop. 197,000) contributed one percent to Argentina's gross national product, primarily through the production of raw materials (mostly oil), and was being battered by the then ongoing economic crisis, with high unemployment and a budget deficit equal to US$ 1.2 billion. He arranged for substantial investments to stimulate productivity, the labor market, and consumption. By eliminating unproductive expenditures and cutting back on tax exemptions for the key petroleum industry, Kirchner restored the financial balance of the province. Through his expansionist and social policies, Kirchner was credited with bringing a substantial measure of prosperity to Santa Cruz. Subsequent studies showed that the province had a better distribution of wealth and lower levels of poverty than most other provinces, second only to Buenos Aires.

Kirchner emerged as a self-called center Peronist, critical both of President Menem's far-reaching neoliberal model and of the syndicalist bureaucracy of the PJ. He attached great importance not only to careful management of the budgetary deficits but also economic growth based on domestic production, rather than financial speculation. He was also considered a progressive in human rights issues, voicing his opposition to Menem's decision in 1990 to grant a presidential pardon to the leaders of the last junta.

In 1994 and 1998, Kirchner introduced amendments to the provincial constitution, to enable him to run for re-election indefinitely. As a member of the 1994 Constitutional Assembly organized by Menem and former president Raúl Alfonsín, Kirchner participated in the drafting of a new national constitution which allowed the president to be re-elected for a second four-year term.

In 1995, with his constitutional changes in place, Kirchner was easily re-elected to a second term as governor, with 66.5% of the votes. But by now, Kirchner was distancing himself from the charismatic and controversial Menem, who was also the nominal head of the PJ; this was made particularly apparent with the launch of Corriente Peronista, an initiative supported by Kirchner to create an alternative space within the Justicialist Party, outside of Menem's influence.

In 1998, Menem's attempt to stand for re-election a second time, by means of an ad hoc interpretation of a constitutional clause, met with strong resistance among Peronist rank-and-file, who were finding themselves under increasing pressure due to the highly controversial policies of the Menem administration and its involvement in corruption scandals. Kirchner joined the camp of Menem's chief opponent within the PJ, the governor of Buenos Aires Province, Eduardo Duhalde.

Menem did not run, and the PJ nominated Duhalde, who was in turn defeated during the October 1999 elections by Buenos Aires Mayor Fernando de la Rúa, the Alliance candidate, and the party lost its majority in Congress. Although the Alianza also made headway in Santa Cruz, Kirchner managed to be re-elected to a third term as governor in May 1999 with 45.7% of the vote. De la Rúa's victory was in part a rejection of Menem's perceived flamboyance and corruption during his last term. De la Rúa instituted austerity measures and reforms to improve the economy; taxes were increased to reduce the deficit, the government bureaucracy was trimmed, and legal restrictions on union negotiations were eased.

These moves did not prevent a deepening of the Argentine economic crisis, however, and a crisis of confidence ensued by November 2001, as domestic depositors began a run on the banks, resulting in the highly unpopular corralito, a limit, and subsequently a full ban, on withdrawals. These developments led to the December 2001 riots, and to President de la Rúa's resignation on December 21.

A series of interim presidents and renewed demonstrations ended with the appointment of Eduardo Duhalde as interim president in January 2002. Duhalde abolished the fixed exchange rate regime that had been in place since 1991, and the Argentine peso quickly devalued by more than two thirds of its value, diminishing middle-class savings and sinking the heavily import-dependent Argentine economy even deeper, but giving a significant profit boost to Argentinian exports. Amid strong public rejection of the entire political class, characterized by the pithy slogan que se vayan todos ("away with them all"), Duhalde brought elections forward by six months.

2003 presidential election

Even though Kirchner run for presidency with the support of Eduardo Duhalde, he was not the initial candidate chosen by the president. Trying to prevent a third term of Carlos Menem, he sought to promote a candidate that may defeat him, but Carlos Reutemann (governor of Santa Fe) did not accept and José Manuel de la Sota (governor of Córdoba) did not grow in the polls. He also tried with Mauricio Macri, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, Felipe Solá and Roberto Lavagna, to no avail. He initially resisted helping Kirchner, fearing that he may ignore Duhalde once in the presidency.

Kirchner's electoral promises included "returning to a republic of equals". After the first round of the election, Kirchner visited the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who received him enthusiastically. He also declared he was proud of his radical left-wing political past.

Although Menem, who was president from 1989 to 1999, won the first round of the election on April 27, 2003, he only got 24% of the valid votes — just 2% ahead of Kirchner. This was an empty victory, as Menem was viewed very negatively by much of the Argentine population and had virtually no chance of winning the runoff election. After days of speculation, during which polls forecast a massive victory for Kirchner with about a 30%–40% difference, Menem finally decided to stand down. This automatically made Kirchner president of Argentina, despite having secured only 22% of the votes in the election, the lowest percentage gained by the eventual winner of an Argentine presidential election. He was sworn in on May 25, 2003 to a four-year term of office.

President of Argentina

, in 2004]] Kirchner came into office on the tail of a deep economic crisis. A country which had once equalled Europe in levels of prosperity and considered itself a bulwark of European culture in Latin America found itself deeply impoverished, with a depleted middle class and malnutrition appearing in the lower strata of society. The country was burdened with $178 billion in debt, the government strapped for cash. While associated to the clientelist and nearly feudal style of government of many provincial governors and the corruption of the PJ, Kirchner was comparatively unknown to the national public, and he showed himself as a newcomer who had arrived at the Casa Rosada without the usual whiff of scandal about him, trying not to make a point of the fact that he himself had seven times been on the same electoral ballot with Menem.

Shortly after coming into office, Kirchner made changes to the Argentine Supreme Court. He accused certain justices of extortion and pressured them to resign, while also fostering the impeachment of two others. In place of a majority of politically right-wing and religiously conservative justices, he appointed new ones who were ideologically closer to him, including two women (one of them an avowed atheist). Kirchner also retired dozens of generals, admirals, and brigadiers from the armed forces, a few of them with reputations tainted by the atrocities of the Dirty War. Kirchner kept the Duhalde administration's Minister of the Economy, Roberto Lavagna. Lavagna also declared that his first priority now was social problems. Argentina's default was the largest in financial history, and ironically it gave Kirchner and Lavagna significant bargaining power with the IMF, which loathes having bad debts on its books. During his first year of office, Kirchner achieved a difficult agreement to reschedule $84 billion in debts with international organizations, for three years. In the first half of 2005, the government launched a bond exchange to restructure approximately $81 billion of national public debt (an additional $20 billion in past defaulted interest was not recognized). Over 76% of the debt was tendered and restructured for a recovery value of approximately one third of its nominal value.

Kirchner saw the 2005 parliamentary elections as a means to confirm his political power, since Carlos Menem's defection in the second round of the 2003 presidential elections had not allowed Kirchner to receive the large number of votes that surveys predicted. Kirchner explicitly stated that the 2005 elections would be like a mid-term plebiscite for his administration, and he actively participated in the campaign in most provinces. Due to internal disagreements, the Justicialist Party was not presented as such on the polls but split into several factions. Kirchner's Frente para la Victoria (FPV, Front for Victory) was overwhelmingly the winner (the candidates of the FPV got more than 40% of the national vote), following which many supporters of other factions (mostly those led by former presidents Eduardo Duhalde and Carlos Menem) migrated to the FPV.

On 15 December 2005, following Brazil's initiative, Kirchner announced the cancellation of Argentina's debt to the IMF in full and offered a single payment, in a historic decision that generated controversy at the time (see Argentine debt restructuring). Some commentators, such as Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, suggest that the Argentine experiment has thus far proven successful. Others, such as Michael Mussa, formerly on the staff of the International Monetary Fund and now with the Peterson Institute, question the longer-term sustainability of Pres. Kirchner's approach.

In a meeting with executives of multinational corporations on Wall Street—after which he was the first Argentine president to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange—Kirchner defended his "heterodox economic policy, within the canon of classic economics" and criticized the IMF for its lack of collaboration with the Argentine recovery.

On July 2, 2007, President Kirchner announced he would not seek re-election in the October elections, despite having the support of 60% of those surveyed in polls. Instead, Kirchner intended to focus on the creation of a new political party.

Kirchner secured the Presidency of the Justicialist Party (to which his FPV belongs), in April 2008. Following the FPV's loss of 4 Senators and over 20 Congressmen in the June 28, 2009 mid-term elections, however, he was replaced by Buenos Aires Province Governor Daniel Scioli.

Cabinet

{| !bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"| |- |align="left"|Office||align="left"|Holder||align="left"|Term |- ! style="background:#000;" colspan="3"| |- |Vice President||Daniel Scioli||5/200312/2007 |- ! style="background:#000;" colspan="3"| |- |Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers||Alberto Fernández||5/200312/2007 |- |Ministry of Foreign Affairs||Rafael Bielsa||5/200312/2005 |- | ||Jorge Taiana||12/200512/2007 |- |Ministry of Economics||Roberto Lavagna||5/200312/2005 |- | ||Felisa Miceli||12/20057/2007 |- | ||Miguel Peirano ||7/200712/2007 |- |Ministry of Defense||José Pampuro||5/200312/2005 |- | ||Nilda Garré||12/200512/2007 |- |Ministry of the Interior||Aníbal Fernández||5/200312/2007 |- |Ministry of Justice and Human Rights||Gustavo Béliz||5/20037/2004 |- | ||Horacio Rosatti||7/20046/2005 |- | ||Alberto Iribarne||6/200512/2007 |- |Ministry of Federal Planning and Public Services||Julio de Vido||5/200312/2007 |- |Ministry of Education, Science and Technology||Daniel Filmus||5/200312/2007 |- |Ministry of Work and Social Security||Carlos Tomada||5/200312/2007 |- |Ministry of Social Policy||Alicia Kirchner de Mercado||5/200312/2005 |- | ||Juan Carlos Nadalich||12/20058/2006 |- | ||Alicia Kirchner de Mercado||8/200612/2007 |- |Ministry of Health and Environment||Ginés González García||5/200312/2007 |-

Post-presidency

Kirchner remained a highly influential politician during the term of his successor and wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The press developed the term "presidential marriage" to make reference to both of them at once. Some political analysts compared this type of government with a diarchy. He took part in the Operation Emmanuel in Colombia to release a group of FARC hostages, in December 2007. The Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt was among the group of hostages. Kirchner returned to Argentina after the failure of the negotiations, but some of the hostages were liberated the following year, including Betancourt.

Néstor Kirchner took active part in the government conflict with the agricultural sector in 2008. During this conflict he became president of the Justicialist Party, and declared full support for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the conflict. He accused the agricultural sector of attempting a coup d'état. He was one of the speakers in a demonstration made next to the Argentine National Congress supporting a law project on the matter, that would be voted the following day. Kirchner requested by then to accept the result in the Congress. Many senators who had formerly supported the government's proposal rejected it. The voting ended in a tie with 36 supporting votes and 36 rejecting votes. As a result, vicepresident Julio Cobos, president of the chamber of senators, was required to cast a decisive vote. Cobos voted for the rejection, and the law proposal was rejected.

On June 2009 legislative elections he ran for National Deputy for the Buenos Aires Province district. He was elected along with other 11 Front for Victory candidates, as their ticket arrived close second to the Union PRO peronist-conservative coalition in that district.

Néstor Kirchner was proposed by Ecuador as a candidate Secretary General of Unasur, but was rejected by Uruguay, at a time when Uruguay and Argentina were debating the Pulp mill dispute. The dispute was resolved in 2010 and the new Uruguayan president, José Mujica, supported Kirchner's candidacy. Kirchner was unanimously elected the first Secretary General of Unasur, during a Unasur Member States Heads of State summit held in Buenos Aires on 4 May 2010. In that role, he successfully mediated in the 2010 Colombia–Venezuela diplomatic crisis.

Criticism and controversy

Kirchner was strongly criticized by commentators accusing him of authoritarianism by overly concentrating power in the executive branch and excessive use of decrees. The magazine The Economist in 2006 accused Kirchner of "populism", which it describes as a Latin American tendency that the Argentine president shares with a diverse range of figures, such as indigenous Peruvian nationalist Ollanta Humala, Mexican social democrat Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article criticizing the NYSE for choosing Kirchner as a bell ringer, accusing him of being "anti-market."

Joaquín Morales Solá, a political columnist for the Argentine newspaper La Nación, accused Kirchner of having a "personalistic style of governing, with a dose of authoritarianism and hegemony, an aggressive style of induced rupture and confrontation", and recently diverse allegations of cronyism and corrupt practices by his government's officials began to mount.

Controversy also arose when the Minister of Economy, Felisa Miceli, removed an officer of the National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina in charge of calculating the inflation indexes, allowing Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno to hand-pick an official from outside the institution for the post, in what was seen as a move to manipulate official data.

In the last months of his presidency, Kirchner had to weather several scandals. His Minister of Economy Felisa Miceli was forced to resign over more than $60,000 found stashed in a bag in her office bathroom, and a businessman carrying a suitcase with US$800,000 in cash, on a government-hired jet traveling from Venezuela, was discovered at an Argentine airport.

In May 2009, it was reported that the Argentine Intelligence Services (SIDE) were allegedly obeying Kirchner's orders in spying and harassing both his opponents as well as fellow Front for Victory and Justicialist Party figures to aid him in winning the 2009 mid-term elections, in which his party list struggled. The current SIDE Secretary, Héctor Icazuriaga, attended official acts with Kirchner and "offered political assistance" to him in the weekends at the official residence of the ex President.

In March 2007, it was confirmed that the SIDE had intervened and disrupted calls shortly before Cristina succeeded Néstor in the Casa Rosada; the Federal Police were linked to a clandestine operation involving the SIDE and 15,000 to 20,000 telephone numbers.

Allegations of Embezzlement

Official reports from Argentina's anti-corruption office show that the fortune of the Argentine presidential couple, President Cristina Kirchner and her immediate predecessor and husband, Nestor Kirchner jumped 20.6% in 2009 totaling the equivalent of 14.5 million US dollars, and soared 700% since they first took office in 2003. The couple and several of their closest aides have been accused of purchasing from the Santa Cruz province government (their political turf) land at rock bottom farm prices which rapidly were converted into urban and suburban districts in exclusive resort areas valued in millions of dollars.

Several illicit enrichment claims filed in Buenos Aires did not prosper or were shelved with the same prosecutor involved in all cases.

Death

.]] Néstor Kirchner died of heart failure on 27 October 2010. He had been expected to run for president in 2011.

A wake was held from 28 October at the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires with the attendance of Latin American leaders. For more than 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of people filed past Kirchner's body lying in state, at the Casa Rosada. Starting on the afternoon of October 29 a large procession accompanied the remains of Néstor Kirchner from Casa Rosada to the metropolitan airport,

Argentina declared three days of national mourning. Condolences came from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the European Union, The Union of South American Nations declared three days of national mourning in all South American countries. Eight South American heads of state traveled to Buenos Aires for the funeral and many other offered condolences.

Bibliography

References

External links

for the 2011 presidential campaign Biography by CIDOB Foundation

Category:1950 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Presidents of Argentina Category:Governors of Santa Cruz Category:Argentine lawyers Category:Justicialist Party politicians Category:Spouses of the Presidents of Argentina Category:University of La Plata alumni Category:People from Santa Cruz Province Category:Argentine people of Chilean descent Category:Argentine people of Croatian descent Category:Argentine people of Swiss descent Category:Argentine Roman Catholics Category:Deaths from heart failure