:''For alternative meanings, see Argentina (disambiguation) and Argentine (disambiguation).''

Native name
Conventional long name	Argentine Republic
Common name	Argentina
Image coat	Coat of arms of Argentina.svg
National motto	(Spanish)"In Unity and Freedom"
National anthem	(Spanish)"Argentine National Anthem"File:United States Navy Band - Himno Nacional Argentino.ogg
Map caption
Map caption	The Argentine claims in Antarctica (overlapping the Chilean and British Antarctic claims) along with the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands (administered by the United Kingdom) shown in light green.
Capital	Buenos Aires
Largest city	capital
Official languages	Spanish (''de facto'')
Regional languages	Araucano, Guaraní, Quechua, Welsh
Ethnic groups	86.4% European 8.5% Mestizo3.3% Arab1.6% Amerindian0.4% Asian and others
Ethnic groups year	2005
Demonym	Argentine, Argentinian, Argentinean
Government type	Federal representative presidential republic
Leader title1	President
Leader name1	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Leader title2	Vice President and President of the Senate
Leader name2	Julio Cobos
Leader title3	Supreme Court President
Leader name3	Ricardo Lorenzetti
Legislature	Congress
Upper house	Senate
Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
Sovereignty type	Independence
Sovereignty note	from Spain
Established event1	May Revolution
Established date1	25 May 1810
Established event2	Declared
Established date2	9 July 1816
Established event3	Current constitution
Established date3	May 1, 1853
Area rank	8th
Area magnitude	1_E12
Area km2	2766890
Area sq mi	1068302
Percent water	1.1
Population census	40,091,359
Population census year	2010
Population census rank	32nd
Population density km2	14.49
Population density sq mi	37.53
Population density rank	207th
Gdp ppp	$642.4 billion
Gdp ppp rank	22nd
Gdp ppp year	2010
Gdp ppp per capita	$15,854
Gdp ppp per capita rank	51st
Gdp nominal	$370.3 billion
Gdp nominal rank	27th
Gdp nominal year	2010
Gdp nominal per capita	$9,138
Gdp nominal per capita rank	62nd
Gini	41.4
Gini year	2010
Gini category	high
Hdi	0.775
Hdi rank	46th
Hdi year	2010
Hdi category	high
Currency	Peso ($)
Currency code	ARS
Time zone	ART
Utc offset	-3
Date format	dd.mm.yyyy (CE)
Drives on	right (trains ride on the left)
Cctld	.ar
Calling code	+54 }}

Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic (, ), is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations.

Argentina's continental area is between the Andes mountain range in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. It borders Paraguay and Bolivia to the north, Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast, and Chile to the west and south. Argentine claims over Antarctica, as well as overlapping claims made by Chile and the United Kingdom, are suspended by the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. Argentina also claims the Falkland Islands () and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories.

A recognised middle power, Argentina is Latin America's third-largest economy, with a high rating on the Human development index. Within Latin America, Argentina has the fifth highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in purchasing power terms. Analysts have argued that the country has a "foundation for future growth due to its market size, levels of foreign direct investment, and percentage of high-tech exports as share of total manufactured goods", and it is classed by investors as an emerging economy. Argentina is a founding member of the United Nations, Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organization, and is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies.

Etymology

Argentina is derived from the Latin ''argentum'' ("silver"). The first use of Argentina can be traced to the 1602 poem ''La Argentina y conquista del Río de la Plata'' () by Martín del Barco Centenera. Although this name for the La Plata Basin was already in common usage by the 18th century, the area was formally called Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776. The autonomous governments that emerged from the 1810 May Revolution replaced "Viceroyalty" with "United Provinces".

One of the first prominent uses of the demonym "Argentine" was in the 1812 first Argentine National Anthem, which made reference to the ongoing Argentine War of Independence. The first formal use of the name was in the 1826 constitution, which used both the terms "Argentine Republic" and "Argentine Nation". The Constitution was repealed, and the territories were instead known as the "Argentine Confederation". This name was used in the 1853 Constitution, being changed to that of the "Argentine Nation" in 1859, and to the "Argentine Republic" per an 1860 decree, when the country achieved its current organization. Nevertheless, the names of the "United Provinces of the Río de la Plata", "Argentine Republic" and "Argentine Confederation" are acknowledged as legitimate names of the country.

History

Early history

The earliest evidence of humans in Argentina dates from 11,000 BC and was found in Patagonia (Piedra Museo, Santa Cruz). These finds were of the Diaguitas, Huarpes, and Sanavirones indigenous peoples, among others. The Inca Empire, under Sapa-Inca Pachacutec, invaded and conquered present-day north-western Argentina in 1480, a feat usually attributed to Túpac Inca Yupanqui. The tribes of Omaguacas, Atacamas, Huarpes and Diaguitas were defeated and integrated into a region called Collasuyu. Others, such as the Sanavirones, Lule-Tonocoté, and Comechingones, resisted the Incas and remained independent from them. The Guaraní developed a culture based on yuca, sweet potato, and yerba mate. The central and southern areas (Pampas and Patagonia) were dominated by nomadic cultures, the most populous among them being the Mapuches. The Atacaman settlement of Tastil in the north had an estimated population of 2,000 people, the highest populated area in pre-Columbian Argentina.

The most advanced indigenous populations were the Charrúas and Guaraníes, who developed some basic agriculture and the use of pottery. Most of their population were located at other sites of South America however, and their presence at the territory of modern Argentina was scarce by comparison.

Colonial Period

European explorers arrived in 1516. Spain established the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1542, encompassing all its holdings in South America. Their first settlement in modern Argentina was the Fort of Sancti Spiritu established in 1527 next to the Paraná River. Buenos Aires, a permanent colony, was established in 1536 but was destroyed by natives. The city was established again in 1580 as part of the Governorate of the Río de la Plata.

The area which encompassed much of the territory that would later become Argentina was largely a territory of Spanish immigrants and their descendants (known as ''criollos''), mestizos, native cultures, and descendants of African slaves. A third of Colonial-era settlers gathered in Buenos Aires and other cities, others lived on the ''pampas'', as gauchos for example. Indigenous peoples inhabited much of the remainder and most of Patagonia and Gran Chaco remained under indigenous control.

Buenos Aires became the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776, which was created over some former territories of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The Río de la Plata area was forced to import goods overland via Lima after 1595, and a reliance on contraband emerged. After 1776, however, Buenos Aires flourished as a commercial hub. In 1806 and 1807 the city was the site of two ill-fated British invasions. The resistance was headed both times by the French Santiago de Liniers, who would become viceroy through popular support. The news of the overthrow of the Spanish King Ferdinand VII during the Peninsular War created great concern in the Viceroyalty. The May Revolution of 1810 took place in Buenos Aires, removing Viceroy Cisneros from government and replacing him by the Primera Junta.

Building of a nation-state

During the following decade a war for independence ensued in the former Viceroyalty, its regions divided between patriots and royalists. While the cities of present-day Argentina would align with the independents after 1811, the other regions would follow differing paths: Paraguay seceded, declaring its independence from Spain 1811 and from Argentina in 1842. Upper Peru was disputed with the royalists from Peru until it declared independence as Bolivia in 1824. The eastern bank of the Uruguay river was invaded by the Brazilian-Portuguese Empire in 1817 and declared independence as Uruguay in 1828 after the Argentina-Brazil War.

Internal conflicts would cause political instability within the patriots. In just four years the Primera Junta was replaced by the Junta Grande, the first and second triumvirates, and the first Supreme Director. In 1813 an Assembly convened to declare independence but it could not do so due to political disputes. A Civil War ensued between the provinces joined into the Federal League and the Supreme Directorship.

By 1816 the United Provinces of South America were under severe internal and external threats. In July a new Congress declared independence and named Juan Martín de Pueyrredón as the Supreme Director. The military campaign became the responsibility of José de San Martín, who led an army across the Andes in 1817 and defeated the Chilean royalists. With the Chilean navy at his disposal he then took the fight to the royalist stronghold of Lima. San Martín's military campaigns complemented those of Simón Bolívar in Gran Colombia and led to the independent's victory in the Spanish American wars of independence.

The 1820 Battle of Cepeda, fought between the Centralists and the Federalists, resulted in the end of the centralized national authority and created a power vacuum. A new constitution was enacted in 1826, during the War with Brazil, when Bernardino Rivadavia was elected the first President of Argentina. This constitution was soon rejected by the provinces, due to its Centralist bias, and Rivadavia resigned shortly after. The provinces then reorganized themselves as the Argentine Confederation, a loose confederation of provinces that lacked a common head of state. They would instead delegate some important powers to the governor of Buenos Aires Province, such as debt payment or the management of international relations.

Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas ruled from 1829 to 1832, and from 1835 to 1852. During his first term he convened the Pacto Federal and defeated the Unitarian League. After 1835 he was given the "Sum of public power". He faced unitarian resistance and a constant state of war, including a French blockade from 1838 to 1840, the War of the Confederation in the north, an Anglo-French blockade from 1845 to 1850, and the Corrientes Province revolt. Rosas remained undefeated during this series of conflicts and prevented further loss of national territory. His refusal to enact a national constitution, pursuant to the Pacto Federal, led to Entre Ríos Province Governor Justo José de Urquiza's reclaiming provincial sovereignty. He defeated Rosas at the Battle of Caseros, forcing him into exile. The San Nicolás Agreement followed and in 1853 the Constitution of Argentina was promulgated. Following the secession of the State of Buenos Aires from the Confederation, and its later return, Bartolomé Mitre was elected the first president of the unified country in 1862. National unity was further advanced by the War of the Triple Alliance, which left over 300,000 dead and devastated Paraguay.

After 1875 a wave of foreign investment and immigration from Europe led to the strengthening of a cohesive state, the development of modern agriculture and to a near-reinvention of Argentine society and economy. The rule of law was consolidated, in large measure, by Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield whose 1860 Commercial Code and 1869 Civil Code laid the foundation for Argentina's statutory laws. General Julio Argentino Roca's military campaign in the 1870s established Argentine dominance over the southern Pampas and Patagonia, subdued the remaining native peoples, and left 1,300 indigenous dead. Waged to suppress Malón raids, some contemporary sources indicate that the "Conquest of the Desert" was a campaign of genocide by the Argentine government.

Modern history

Argentina increased in prosperity and prominence between 1880 and 1929 and emerged as one of the ten richest countries in the world, benefiting from an agricultural export-led economy as well as British and French investment. Driven by immigration and decreasing mortality the Argentine population grew fivefold and the economy 15-fold. Conservative élites dominated Argentine politics through nominally democratic means until 1912, when President Roque Sáenz Peña enacted universal male suffrage and the secret ballot. This allowed their traditional rivals, the centrist Radical Civic Union, to win the country's first free elections in 1916. President Hipólito Yrigoyen enacted social and economic reforms and extended assistance to family farmers and small business. Yrigoyen was overthrown by a coup in 1930, however, which led to another decade of Conservative rule. The Concordance regime strengthened ties with the British Empire and their electoral policy was one of "patriotic fraud". The country was neutral during World War I and most of World War II, becoming an important source of foodstuffs for the Allied Nations.

In 1946, General Juan Perón was elected president, creating a populist movement referred to as "Peronism". His wife Eva was popular and played a central political role until her death in 1952, mostly through the Eva Perón Foundation and the Female Peronist Party, as women's suffrage was granted in 1947. During Perón's tenure, wages and working conditions improved appreciably, unionization was fostered, strategic industries and services were nationalized, as well as import substitution industrialization and urban development being prioritized in the agrarian sector.

Formerly stable prices and exchange rates were disrupted however: the peso lost around 70% of its value from 1948 to 1950, and inflation reached 50% in 1951. Foreign policy became more isolationist, straining US-Argentine relations. Perón intensified censorship as well as repression: 110 publications were shuttered, and numerous opposition figures were imprisoned and tortured. Advancing a personality cult, Perón rid himself of many important and capable advisers while promoting patronage. A bombing of Plaza de Mayo was followed some months later by a violent coup which deposed him in 1955. He fled into exile, eventually residing in Spain.

Following an attempt to purge the Peronist influence and the banning of Peronists from political life, elections in 1958 brought Arturo Frondizi to office. Frondizi enjoyed some support from Perón's followers, and his policies encouraged investment to make the country self-sufficient in energy and industry, helping reverse a chronic trade deficit for Argentina. The military frequently interfered on behalf of conservative, agrarian interests however, and the results were mixed. Frondizi was forced to resign in 1962. Arturo Illia was elected in 1963 and enacted expansionist policies but, despite prosperity, his attempts to include Peronists in the political process resulted in the armed forces retaking power in a quiet 1966 coup.

Though repressive, this new regime continued to encourage domestic development and invested record amounts into public works. The economy grew strongly and income poverty declined to 7% by 1975. Partly because of their repressiveness, however, political violence began to escalate and Perón, still in exile, skilfully co-opted student and labor protests which eventually resulted in the military regime's call for free elections in 1973, and Perón's return from Spain.

Taking office that year, Perón died in July 1974 leaving his third wife Isabel, the Vice President, to succeed him in office. Mrs. Perón had been chosen as a compromise among feuding Peronist factions who could agree on no other running mate; secretly though, she was beholden to Perón's most fascist advisers. The resulting conflict, between left and right-wing extremists, led to mayhem, financial chaos and a coup d'état in March 1976 which removed her from office.

The self-styled National Reorganization Process intensified measures against armed groups on the far left, such as People's Revolutionary Army and the Montoneros who had kidnapped and murdered people almost weekly since 1970. Repression was quickly extended to the opposition in general and, during the "Dirty War", thousands of dissidents "disappeared". These abuses were aided and abetted by the CIA in Operation Condor, with many of the military leaders that took part in abuses trained in the School of the Americas.

The new dictatorship brought some stability at first, and built numerous important public works, but frequent wage freezes and deregulation of finance led to a sharp fall in living standards and record foreign debt. Deindustrialization, the peso's collapse, and crushing real interest rates, as well as unprecedented corruption, public revulsion over the Dirty War, and finally the 1982 defeat by the British in the Falklands War, discredited the military regime and led to free elections in 1983.

Contemporary history

Raúl Alfonsín's government took steps to account for the disappeared, established civilian control of the armed forces, and consolidated democratic institutions. The members of the three military juntas were prosecuted and sentenced to life terms. The previous regime's foreign debt, however, left the Argentine economy saddled by the conditions imposed on it by both its private creditors and the International Monetary Fund, and priority was given to servicing the foreign debt at the expense of public works and domestic credit. Alfonsín's failure to resolve worsening economic problems caused him to lose public confidence. Following a 1989 currency crisis that resulted in a sudden and ruinous 15-fold jump in prices, he left office five months early.

Newly elected President Carlos Menem began pursuing privatizations and, after a second bout of hyperinflation in 1990, reached out to economist Domingo Cavallo, who imposed a peso-dollar fixed exchange rate in 1991 and adopted far-reaching market-based policies, dismantling protectionist barriers and business regulations, while accelerating privatizations. These reforms contributed to significant increases in investment and growth with stable prices through most of the 1990s; but the peso's fixed value could only be maintained by flooding the market with dollars, resulting in a renewed increase in the foreign debt. Towards 1998, moreover, a series of international financial crises and overvaluation of the pegged peso caused a gradual slide into economic crisis. The sense of stability and well being which had prevailed during the 1990s eroded quickly, and by the end of his term in 1999, these accumulating problems and reports of corruption had made Menem unpopular.

President Fernando de la Rúa inherited diminished competitiveness in exports, as well as chronic fiscal deficits. The governing coalition developed rifts, and his returning Cavallo to the Economy Ministry was interpreted as a crisis move by speculators. The decision backfired and Cavallo was eventually forced to take measures to halt a wave of capital flight and to stem the imminent debt crisis (culminating in the freezing of bank accounts). A climate of popular discontent ensued, and on December 20, 2001, Argentina dove into its worst institutional and economic crisis since the 1890 Barings financial debacle. There were violent street protests, which clashed with police and resulted in several fatalities. The increasingly chaotic climate, amid riots accompanied by cries that "they should all go", finally resulted in the resignation of President de la Rúa.

Three presidents followed in quick succession over two weeks, culminating in the appointment of interim President Eduardo Duhalde by the Legislative Assembly on January 2, 2002. Argentina defaulted on its international debt, and the peso's 11 year-old tie to the U.S. dollar was rescinded, causing a major depreciation of the peso and a spike in inflation. Duhalde, a Peronist with a centre-left economic position, had to cope with a financial and socio-economic crisis, with unemployment as high as 25% by mid 2002, and the lowest real wages in sixty years. The crisis accentuated the people's mistrust in politicians and institutions. Following a year racked by protest, the economy began to stabilize in late 2002, and restrictions on bank withdrawals were lifted in December.

Benefiting from a devalued exchange rate the government implemented new policies based on re-industrialization, import substitution and increased exports and began seeing consistent fiscal and trade surpluses. Governor Néstor Kirchner, a left-wing Peronist, was elected president in May 2003. During his administration, Argentina restructured its defaulted debt with a steep discount (about 66%) on most bonds, paid off debts with the International Monetary Fund, renegotiated contracts with utilities and nationalized some previously privatized enterprises. Kirchner and his economists, notably Roberto Lavagna, also pursued a vigorous incomes policy and public works investment.

Argentina has since been enjoying economic growth, though with high inflation. Néstor Kirchner forfeited the 2007 campaign, in favor of his wife Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who became the first woman to be elected President of Argentina. She saw controversial plans for higher agricultural export taxes defeated by Vice President Julio Cobos' surprise tie-breaking vote against them in July 2008, following massive agrarian protests and lockouts from March to July. The global financial crisis has since prompted Mrs. Kirchner to step up her husband's policy of state intervention in troubled sectors of the economy. On July 15, 2010, Argentina became the first country in Latin America and the second country in the Southern Hemisphere to legalize same-sex marriage.

Politics

The Argentine Constitution of 1853 mandates a separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches at the national and provincial level. The political framework is a federal representative democratic republic, in which the President is both head of state and head of government, complemented by a pluriform multi-party system.

Executive power resides in the President and the Cabinet. The President and Vice President are directly elected to four-year terms and are limited to two terms. Cabinet ministers are appointed by the President and are not subject to legislative ratification. The current President is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, with Julio Cobos as Vice President.

Legislative power is vested in the bicameral National Congress, comprising a 72-member Senate and a 257-member Chamber of Deputies. Senators serve six-year terms, with one-third standing for re-election every two years. Members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected to four-year terms by a proportional representation system, with half of the members standing for re-election every two years. A third of the candidates presented by the parties must be women.

The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The Supreme Court has seven members appointed by the President in consultation with the Senate. The judges of all the other courts are appointed by the Council of Magistrates of the Nation, a secretariat composed of representatives of judges, lawyers, the Congress and the executive.

Though declared the capital in 1853, Buenos Aires did not become the official Capital until 1880. The 1994 amendment of the Argentine Constitution included a limited form of devolution to Buenos Aires. The national government reserved control of the Argentine Federal Police (the federally administered city force), the Port of Buenos Aires, and other faculties, however.

Argentina is divided into twenty-three provinces (''provincias''; singular ''provincia'') and one Autonomous City. Buenos Aires Province is divided into 134 ''partidos'', while the remaining Provinces are divided into 376 departments (''departamentos''). Departments and Partidos are further subdivided into municipalities or districts. With the exception of Buenos Aires Province, the nation's provinces have chosen in recent years to enter into treaties with other provinces, forming four federated regions aimed at fostering economic integration and development: Center Region, Patagonic Region, New Cuyo Region, and the Argentine Greater North Region.

Foreign policy

Argentina is a full member of the Mercosur block together with Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela; and five associate members: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. From 2003 Argentina has emphasized Mercosur, which has some supranational legislative functions, as its first international priority; by contrast, during the 1990s, it relied more heavily on its relationship with the United States. Argentina is a founding signatory and permanent consulting member of the Antarctic Treaty System and the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat is based in Buenos Aires.

Argentina has long claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (), and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories, as well as almost in Antarctica, between 25°W and 74°W and south of 60°S. The Antarctic claim overlaps claims by Chile and the United Kingdom, though all claims to Antarctica fall under the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty. Since 1904, a scientific post has been maintained in Antarctica by mutual agreement. While Argentina has employed threats and force to pursue its claims against Chile in the Beagle channel, against Britain in Antarctica and the Falklands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, as well as against illegal trawlers, this is the exception rather than the rule in Argentine international relations. Argentina was the only Latin American country to participate in the 1991 Gulf War under the United Nations mandate, and played an important role in Operation Uphold Democracy, in Haiti. Argentina has contributed worldwide to peacekeeping operations, including those in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Ecuador-Peru dispute, Western Sahara, Angola, Kuwait, Cyprus, Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Timor Leste. In recognition of its contributions to international security, U.S. President Bill Clinton designated Argentina as a major non-NATO ally in January 1998. It was last elected as a member of the UN Security Council in 2005. The United Nations White Helmets, a bulwark of peacekeeping and humanitarian aid efforts, were first deployed in 1994 following an Argentine initiative.

Military

The armed forces of Argentina comprise an army, navy and air force, and number about 70,000 active duty personnel, one third fewer than levels before the return to democracy in 1983. The President is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, with the Defense Ministry exercising day-to-day control. There are also two other forces; the Naval Prefecture (which patrols Argentine territorial waters) and the National Gendarmerie (which patrols the border regions); both arms are controlled by the Interior Ministry but maintain liaison with the Defense Ministry. The minimum age for enlistment in the armed forces is 18 years and there is no obligatory military service.

Historically, Argentina's military has been one of the best equipped in the region (for example, developing its own jet fighters as early as the 1950s); but recently it has faced sharper expenditure cutbacks than most other Latin American armed forces. Real military expenditures declined steadily after 1981 and though there have been recent increases, the defense budget is now around US$3 billion. The armed forces are currently participating in major peacekeeping operations in Haiti and Cyprus.

Provinces

Argentina is composed of twenty-three provinces (, singular ''provincia'') and one autonomous city (''Ciudad autónoma de Buenos Aires''). The city and the provinces have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. The administrative divisions of the Provinces are the departments (, singular ''departamento''), and the municipalities ( or ''intendencias''), except for Buenos Aires Province, which is divided into partidos. The City of Buenos Aires is divided into communes.

Geography

The total surface area (excluding the Antarctic claim) is , of which (1.1%) is water. Argentina is about long from north to south, and from east to west (maximum values). There are four major regions: the fertile central plains of the Pampas, source of Argentina's agricultural wealth; the flat to rolling, oil-rich southern plateau of Patagonia including Tierra del Fuego; the subtropical northern flats of the Gran Chaco, and the rugged Andes mountain range along the western border with Chile.

The highest point above sea level is in Mendoza province at Cerro Aconcagua (), also the highest point in the Southern and Western Hemisphere. The lowest point is Laguna del Carbón in Santa Cruz province, below sea level. This is also the lowest point in South America. The geographic center of the country is in south-central La Pampa province. The easternmost continental point is northeast of Bernardo de Irigoyen, Misiones,() the westernmost in the Mariano Moreno Range in Santa Cruz province.() The northernmost point is at the confluence of the Grande de San Juan and Mojinete rivers in Jujuy province,() and the southernmost is Cape San Pío in Tierra del Fuego. ()

The major rivers are the Paraná (the largest), the Pilcomayo, Paraguay, Bermejo, Colorado, Río Negro, Salado and the Uruguay. The Paraná and the Uruguay join to form the Río de la Plata estuary, before reaching the Atlantic. Regionally important rivers are the Atuel and Mendoza in the homonymous province, the Chubut in Patagonia, the Río Grande in Jujuy and the San Francisco River in Salta.

There are several large lakes including Argentino and Viedma in Santa Cruz, Nahuel Huapi between Río Negro and Neuquén, Fagnano in Tierra del Fuego, and Colhué Huapi and Musters in Chubut. Lake Buenos Aires and O'Higgins/San Martín Lake are shared with Chile. Mar Chiquita, Córdoba, is the largest salt water lake in the country. There are numerous reservoirs created by dams. Argentina features various hot springs, such as Termas de Río Hondo with temperatures between and .

The largest oil spill in fresh water was caused by a Shell Petroleum tanker in the Río de la Plata, off Magdalena, on January 15, 1999, polluting the environment, drinking water, and local wildlife.

The long Atlantic coast has been a popular local vacation area for over a century, and varies between areas of sand dunes and cliffs. The continental platform is unusually wide; this shallow area of the Atlantic is called the Argentine Sea. The waters are rich in fisheries and possibly hold important hydrocarbon energy resources. The two major ocean currents affecting the coast are the warm Brazil Current and the cold Falkland Current. Because of the unevenness of the coastal landmass, the two currents alternate in their influence on climate and do not allow temperatures to fall evenly with higher latitude. The southern coast of Tierra del Fuego forms the north shore of the Drake Passage.

Climate

The generally temperate climate ranges from subtropical in the north to subpolar in the far south. The north is characterized by very hot, humid summers with mild drier winters, and is subject to periodic droughts. Central Argentina has hot summers with thunderstorms (western Argentina produces some of the world's largest hail), and cool winters. The southern regions have warm summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall, especially in mountainous zones. Higher elevations at all latitudes experience cooler conditions.

The hottest and coldest temperature extremes recorded in South America have occurred in Argentina. A record high temperature of , was recorded at Villa María, Córdoba, on 2 January 1920. The lowest temperature recorded was at Valle de los Patos Superior, San Juan, on 17 July 1972.

Major wind currents include the cool Pampero Winds blowing on the flat plains of Patagonia and the ''Pampas''; following the cold front, warm currents blow from the north in middle and late winter, creating mild conditions. The Zonda, a hot dry wind, affects west-central Argentina. Squeezed of all moisture during the descent from the Andes, Zonda winds can blow for hours with gusts up to , fueling wildfires and causing damage; when the Zonda blows (June–November), snowstorms and blizzard (''viento blanco'') conditions usually affect higher elevations.

The Sudestada ("southeasterlies") could be considered similar to the Nor'easter, though snowfall is rare but not unprecedented. Both are associated with a deep winter low pressure system. The ''sudestada'' usually moderates cold temperatures but brings very heavy rains, rough seas and coastal flooding. It is most common in late autumn and winter along the central coast and in the Río de la Plata estuary.

The southern regions, particularly the far south, experience long periods of daylight from November to February (up to nineteen hours) and extended nights from May to August.

Biodiversity

Subtropical plants dominate the Gran Chaco in the north, with the Dalbergia genus of trees well represented by ''Brazilian Rosewood'' and the ''quebracho tree''; also predominant are white and black ''algarrobo'' trees (prosopis alba and prosopis nigra). Savannah-like areas exist in the drier regions nearer the Andes. Aquatic plants thrive in the wetlands of Argentina. In central Argentina the ''humid pampas'' are a true tallgrass prairie ecosystem. The original pampa had virtually no trees; some imported species like the American sycamore or eucalyptus are present along roads or in towns and country estates (''estancias''). The only tree-like plant native to the pampa is the evergreen Ombú. The surface soils of the pampa are a deep black color, primarily mollisols, known commonly as ''humus''. This makes the region one of the most agriculturally productive on Earth; however, this is also responsible for decimating much of the original ecosystem, to make way for commercial agriculture. The western pampas receive less rainfall, this ''dry pampa'' is a plain of short grasses or steppe. The national government maintains 29 national parks.

Most of Patagonia lies within the rain shadow of the Andes, so the flora, shrubby bushes and plants, is suited to dry conditions. The soil is hard and rocky, making large-scale farming impossible except along river valleys. Coniferous forests in far western Patagonia and on the island of Tierra del Fuego, include alerce, ciprés de la cordillera, ciprés de las guaitecas, huililahuán, lleuque, mañío hembra and pehuén, while broadleaf trees include several species of ''Nothofagus'' such as coihue, lenga and ñire. Other introduced trees present in forestry plantations include spruce, cypress and pine. Common plants are the copihue and colihue.

In Cuyo, semiarid thorny bushes and other xerophile plants abound. Along the many rivers grasses and trees grow in significant numbers. The area presents optimal conditions for the large scale growth of grape vines. In northwest Argentina there are many species of cactus. No vegetation grows in the highest elevations (above ) because of the extreme altitude. Many species live in the subtropical north. Prominent animals include big cats like the jaguar, puma, and ocelot; primates (howler monkey); large reptiles (crocodiles), \the Argentine Black and White Tegu and a species of caiman. Other animals include the tapir, peccary, capybara, bush dog, raccoon, and various species of turtle and tortoise. There are a wide variety of birds, notably hummingbirds, flamingos, toucans, and swallows.

The central grasslands are populated by the giant anteater, armadillo, pampas cat, maned wolf, mara, cavias, and the rhea (''ñandú''), a large flightless bird. Hawks, falcons, herons, and tinamous (''perdiz'', Argentine "false partridges") inhabit the region. There are also pampas deer and pampas foxes. Some of these species extend into Patagonia.

The western mountains are home to different animals. These include the llama, guanaco, vicuña, among the most recognizable species of South America. Also in this region are the fox, viscacha, Andean Mountain Cat, kodkod, and the largest flying bird in the New World, the Andean Condor.

Southern Argentina is home to the cougar, huemul, pudú (the world's smallest deer), and introduced, non-native wild boar. The coast of Patagonia is rich in animal life: elephant seals, fur seals, sea lions and species of penguin. The far south is populated by cormorants.

The territorial waters of Argentina have abundant ocean life; mammals such as dolphins, orcas, and whales like the southern right whale, a major tourist draw for naturalists. Sea fish include sardines, Argentine hakes, dolphinfish, salmon, and sharks; also present are squid and King crab (''centolla'') in Tierra del Fuego. Rivers and streams in Argentina have many species of trout and the South American dorado fish. Well known snake species inhabiting Argentina include boa constrictors and a very venomous pit viper named the yarará. The Hornero was elected the National Bird after a survey in 1928.

Economy

Argentina has a market-oriented economy with abundant natural resources, a well-educated population, an export-oriented agricultural sector and a relatively diversified industrial base.

The nation's services sector accounts for around 59% of the economy and 72% of employment, manufacturing is 21% of GDP and 13% of employment, and agriculture is 9% of GDP, with 7% of employment; constructon, mining, and public utilities divide the rest. Agriculture, including processed goods, provided 54% of export earnings in 2010, however, while industrial manufactures accounted for 35% (energy staples and metal ores were most of the remainder).

High inflation has been a weakness of the Argentine economy for decades. Officially hovering around 9% since 2006, inflation has been privately estimated at over 20%, becoming a contentious issue again. The urban income poverty rate has dropped to 18% as of mid-2008, a third of the peak level observed in 2002, though still above the level prior to 1976. Income distribution, having improved since 2002, is still considerably unequal.

Argentina ranks 105th out of 178 countries in the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2010. Reported problems include both government and private-sector corruption, the latter of which include money laundering, trafficking in narcotics and contraband, and tax evasion. The Kirchner administration responded to the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009 with a record public-works program, new tax cuts and subsidies, and the transfer of private pensions to the social security system. Private pension plans, which required growing subsidies to cover, were nationalized to shed a budgetary drain as well as to finance high government spending and debt obligations.

Argentina has, after its neighbour Chile, the second-highest Human Development Index, and the highest GDP per capita in purchasing power terms in Latin America. Argentina is one of the G-20 major economies, with the world's 27th largest nominal GDP, and the 22nd largest by purchasing power. The country is classified as upper-middle income or a secondary emerging market by the World Bank.

History

Argentina's economy developed from 1875 onwards with a surge of agricultural exports, as well European investment and immigration. This boom ended in 1930, after which the economy began to slowly lose ground. Domestic instability and global trends, however, contributed to Argentina's decline from its noteworthy position as the world's 10th wealthiest nation per capita in 1913 to 62nd by 2010 (though it remains above the world average in purchasing power parity terms). Though no consensus exists explaining this, systemic problems include burdensome debt, monetary uncertainty, excessive regulation, barriers to free trade, and a weak rule of law with corruption and a large bureaucracy.

Even during the long decline from 1930 to 1980 the Argentine economy created Latin America's largest middle class as a proportion of the population. A crisis period of two decades followed José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz's financial liberalization policies of the late 1970s, leading to an increased debt burden and interrupted industrial development and upward social mobility. Expansionary policies and commodity exports triggered a rebound in GDP beginning in 2003. This trend has been largely maintained, creating millions of jobs and encouraging internal consumption. The socio-economic situation improved steadily, and the economy grew around 9% annually for five consecutive years until 2007, with another 7% in 2008.

The global recession of 2007–10 hit the country hard in 2009 with GDP growth slowing to 0.8%. Argentine debt restructuring offers in 2005 and 2010 resumed payments on the majority of its almost $100 billion in defaulted bonds from 2001. The economic minister Amado Boudou said that with the offer, the Argentine government hoped "to end the shame of 2001 once and for all." High GDP growth resumed in 2010, and the economy expanded by 8.5%.

Science and technology

Argentina has contributed many distinguished doctors, scientists and inventors to the world, including three Nobel Prize laureates in sciences. Argentines have been responsible for major breakthroughs in world medicine; their research has led to significant advances in wound-healing therapies and in the treatment of heart disease and several forms of cancer. Domingo Liotta designed and developed the first artificial heart successfully implanted in a human being in 1969. René Favaloro developed the techniques and performed the world's first ever coronary bypass surgery, and Francisco de Pedro invented a more reliable artificial cardiac pacemaker.

Bernardo Houssay, the first Latin American awarded with a Nobel Prize in the Sciences, discovered the role of pituitary hormones in regulating glucose in animals; César Milstein did extensive research in antibodies; Luis Leloir discovered how organisms store energy converting glucose into glycogen and the compounds which are fundamental in metabolizing carbohydrates. A team led by Alberto Taquini and Eduardo Braun-Menéndez discovered angiotensin in 1939, and was the first to describe the enzymatic nature of the renin-angiotensin system and its role in hypertension. The Leloir Institute of biotechnology is among the most prestigious in its field in Latin America and in the world.

Dr. Luis Agote devised the first safe method of blood transfusion, Enrique Finochietto designed operating table tools such as the surgical scissors that bear his name ("Finochietto scissors") and a surgical rib-spreader. They have likewise contributed to bioscience in efforts like the Human Genome Project, where Argentine scientists have successfully mapped the genome of a living being, a world first.

Argentina's nuclear program is highly advanced, having resulted in a research reactor in 1957 and Latin America's first on-line commercial reactor in 1974. Argentina developed its nuclear program without being overly dependent on foreign technology. Nuclear facilities with Argentine technology have been built in Peru, Algeria, Australia and Egypt. In 1983, the country admitted having the capability of producing weapon-grade uranium, a major step needed to assemble nuclear weapons; since then, however, Argentina has pledged to use nuclear power only for peaceful purposes. As a member of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Argentina has been a strong voice in support of nuclear non-proliferation efforts and is highly committed to global nuclear security.

In other areas, Juan Vucetich, a Croatian immigrant, was the father of modern fingerprinting (dactiloscopy). Raúl Pateras Pescara demonstrated the world's first flight of a helicopter, Hungarian-Argentine László Bíró mass-produced the first modern ball point pens and Eduardo Taurozzi developed the pendular combustion engine. Juan Maldacena, an Argentine-American scientist, is a leading figure in string theory. Argentine built satellites include LUSAT-1 (1990), Víctor-1 (1996), PEHUENSAT-1 (2007), and those developed by CONAE, the Argentine space agency, of the SAC series. The Pierre Auger Observatory near Malargüe, Mendoza, is the world's foremost cosmic ray observatory.

Demographics

In the , Argentina had a population of 36,260,130, and preliminary results from the 2010 census were of 40,091,359 inhabitants. Argentina ranks third in South America in total population and 33rd globally. Population density is of 15 persons per square kilometer of land area, well below the world average of 50 persons. The population growth rate in 2010 was an estimated 1.03% annually, with a birth rate of 17.7 live births per 1,000 inhabitants and a mortality rate of 7.4 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants. The net migration rate has ranged from zero to four immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants.

The proportion of people under 15 is 25.6%, somewhat below the world average of 28%, and the proportion of people 65 and older is relatively high at 10.8%. In Latin America this is second only to Uruguay and well above the world average, which is currently 7%. Argentina has one of Latin America's lowest population growth rates, recently about 1% a year, as well as a comparatively low infant mortality rate. Its birth rate of 2.3 children per woman is still nearly twice as high as that in Spain or Italy, compared here as they have similar religious practices and proportions. The median age is approximately 30 years and life expectancy at birth is 76.7 years.

Ethnography

As with other areas of new settlement such as Canada, Australia, and the United States, Argentina is considered a country of immigrants. Most Argentines are descended from colonial-era settlers, and 19th and 20th century immigrants from Europe. Argentina was second only to the US in the numbers of European immigrants received and, at those times, the national population doubled every two decades. The majority of these European immigrants came from Italy and Spain. 86.4% of Argentina's population self-identify as being of European descent. An estimated 8% of the population is Mestizo and 4% of Argentines are of Arab or Asian heritage. In the last national census 600,000 Argentines (1.6%) self-identified as being Amerindians (see Demographics of Argentina for genetic studies).

Recent Illegal immigration has mostly been coming from Bolivia and Paraguay, with smaller numbers from Peru, Ecuador and Romania. The Argentine government estimates that 750,000 inhabitants lack official documents and has launched a program called ''Patria Grande'' ("Greater Homeland") to encourage illegal immigrants to declare their status in return for two-year residence visas——so far over 670,000 applications have been processed under the program.

Religion

The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion but also requires the government to support Roman Catholicism economically. Until 1994 the President and Vice President had to be Roman Catholic, though there were no such restrictions on other government officials; although since 1945 members of other religious groups have held prominent posts. Catholic policy remains influential in government though, and still helps shape a variety of legislation. In a study assessing world-wide levels of religious regulation and persecution, with scores ranging from 0–10 where 0 represented low levels of regulation or persecution, Argentina received a score of 1.4 on Government Regulation of Religion, 6.0 on Social Regulation of Religion, 6.9 on Government Favoritism of Religion and 6 on Religious Persecution.

According to the World Christian Database Argentines are: 92.1% Christian, 3.1% agnostic, 1.9% Muslim, 1.3% Jewish, 0.9% atheist, and 0.9% Buddhist and others. Argentine Christians are mostly Roman Catholic with estimates for the number of Catholics varying from 70% to 90% of the population (though perhaps only 20% attend services regularly).

Evangelical churches have been gaining a foothold since the 1980s with approximately 9% of the total population, Pentecostal churches and traditional Protestant denominations are present in most communities and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims 330,000 followers in Argentina (their seventh-largest congregation in the world).

Argentina has the largest Jewish population of any country in Latin America. A recent study found that approximately 11% of Argentines are non-religious (which includes those who believe in God but do not follow a religion), 4% are agnostics and 5% are atheist. Overall 24% attended religious services regularly. Protestants were the only group with a majority of followers who regularly attended services.

Language

The ''de facto'' official language of Argentina is Spanish, usually called ''castellano'' (Castilian) by Argentines. Argentina is the largest Spanish-speaking society that universally employs ''voseo'' (the use of the pronoun ''vos'' instead of ''tú'' (you), which occasions the use of alternate verb forms as well). The most prevalent dialect is Rioplatense, whose speakers are primarily located in the Río de la Plata basin. Italian and other European immigrants influenced ''Lunfardo'', the slang spoken in the Río de la Plata region, permeating the vernacular vocabulary of other regions as well. A phonetic study conducted by the Laboratory for Sensory Investigations of CONICET and the University of Toronto showed that the accent of the inhabitants of Buenos Aires (known as ''porteños'') is closer to the Neapolitan language, spoken in Southern Italy, than any other spoken language.

According to Ethnologue there are around 1.5 million Italian speakers (making it the second most spoken language in the country) and 1 million speakers of the North Levantine dialect of Arabic (spoken in Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus). Standard German is spoken by 400,000—500,000 Argentines of German ancestry, making it the fourth most spoken language.

Some indigenous communities have retained their original languages. Guaraní is spoken by some in the north east, especially in Corrientes (where it enjoys official status) and Misiones. Quechua is spoken by some in the north west and has a local variant in Santiago del Estero. Aymara is spoken by members of the Bolivian immigrant community. In Patagonia there are Welsh-speaking communities with around 25,000 using it as their second-language. Recent immigrants have brought Chinese and Korean (mostly to Buenos Aires). English, Brazilian Portuguese and French are also spoken. English is commonly taught at schools as a second language with Portuguese and French to a lesser extent.

Urbanization

Argentina is highly urbanized. The ten largest metropolitan areas account for half of the population, and fewer than one in ten live in rural areas. About 3 million people live in Buenos Aires City and the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area totals around 13 million, making it one of the largest urban areas in the world.

The metropolitan areas of Córdoba and Rosario have around 1.3 million inhabitants each and Mendoza, Tucumán, La Plata, Mar del Plata, Salta and Santa Fe have at least half a million people each.

The population is unequally distributed amongst the provinces: about 60% live in the Pampa region (21% of the total area), including 15 million people in Buenos Aires Province; Córdoba Province Santa Fe Province and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires have 3 million each. Seven other provinces have over one million people each: Mendoza, Tucumán, Entre Ríos, Salta, Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones. Tucumán is the most densely populated with 60 inhabitants/km², the only Argentine province more densely populated than the world average, while the southern province of Santa Cruz has around 1 inhabitant/km².

Most European immigrants settled in the cities, and the many small towns founded along the expanding railway system. From the 1930s rural migration into the nation's larger cities accounted for much of their population growth. Argentine cities were originally built in a colonial Spanish grid style and many still retain this general layout, which is known as a ''damero'' (checkerboard). Most of the larger cities also feature boulevards and diagonal avenues inspired by Haussmann's renovation of Paris. The city of La Plata, designed at the end of the 19th century by Pedro Benoit, combines the checkerboard layout with added diagonal avenues at fixed intervals——it was also the first in South America to have electric street lights.

Largest cities

Culture

Argentine culture has significant European influences. Buenos Aires, its cultural capital, is largely characterized by both the prevalence of people of European descent, and of conscious imitation of European styles in architecture. The other big influence is the gauchos and their traditional country lifestyle of self-reliance. Finally, indigenous American traditions (like yerba mate infusions) have been absorbed into the general cultural milieu.

Literature

Argentina has a rich literary history, as well as one of the region's most active publishing industries. Argentine writers have figured prominently in Latin American literature since becoming a fully united entity in the 1850s. The struggle between the Federalists (who favored a loose confederation of provinces based on rural conservatism) and the Unitarians (pro-liberalism and advocates of a strong central government that would encourage European immigration), set the tone for Argentine literature of the time.

The ideological divide between gaucho epic Martín Fierro by José Hernández, and Facundo by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, is a great example. Hernández, a federalist, was opposed to the centralizing, modernizing and Europeanizing tendencies. Sarmiento wrote in support of immigration as the only way to save Argentina from becoming subject to the rule of a small number of dictatorial caudillo families, arguing such immigrants would make Argentina more modern and open to Western European influences and therefore a more prosperous society.

Argentine literature of that period was fiercely nationalist. It was followed by the modernist movement, which emerged in France in the late 19th century, and this period in turn was followed by vanguardism, with Ricardo Güiraldes as an important reference. Jorge Luis Borges, its most acclaimed writer, found new ways of looking at the modern world in metaphor and philosophical debate and his influence has extended to writers all over the globe. Borges is most famous for his works in short stories such as Ficciones and The Aleph.

Some of the nation's notable writers, poets and intellectuals include: Juan Bautista Alberdi, Roberto Arlt, Enrique Banchs, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Silvina Bullrich, Eugenio Cambaceres, Julio Cortázar, Esteban Echeverría, Leopoldo Lugones, Eduardo Mallea, Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Victoria Ocampo, Manuel Puig, Ernesto Sabato, Osvaldo Soriano, Alfonsina Storni and María Elena Walsh.

Visual arts

Numerous Argentine architects have enriched their own country's cityscapes and, in recent decades, those around the world. Juan Antonio Buschiazzo helped popularize Beaux-Arts architecture and Francisco Gianotti combined Art Nouveau with Italianate styles, each adding flair to Argentine cities during the early 20^th century. Francisco Salamone and Viktor Sulĉiĉ left an Art Deco legacy, and Alejandro Bustillo created a prolific body of Rationalist architecture. Clorindo Testa introduced Brutalist architecture locally and César Pelli's and Patricio Pouchulu's Futurist creations have graced cities, worldwide. Pelli's 1980s throwbacks to the Art Deco glory of the 1920s, in particular, made him one of the world's most prestigious architects.

One of the most influential Argentine figures in fine arts was Xul Solar, whose surrealist work used watercolors as readily as unorthodox painting media; he also "invented" two imaginary languages. The works of Cándido López and Florencio Molina Campos (in Naïve art style), Ernesto de la Cárcova and Eduardo Sívori (realism), Fernando Fader (impressionism), Pío Collivadino and Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós (post-impressionist), Emilio Pettoruti (cubist), Antonio Berni (neo-figurative), Gyula Košice (constructivism), Eduardo Mac Entyre (Generative art), Guillermo Kuitca (abstract), and Roberto Aizenberg (Surrealism) are a few of the best-known Argentine painters.

Others include Benito Quinquela Martín, a quintessential 'port' painter for whom the working class and immigrant-bound La Boca neighborhood, in particular, was excellently suited. A similar environment inspired Adolfo Bellocq, whose lithographs have been influential since the 1920s. Evocative monuments ny Realist sculptors Erminio Blotta, Lola Mora and Rogelio Yrurtia became the part of the national landscape and today, Lucio Fontana and León Ferrari are acclaimed sculptors and conceptual artists. Ciruelo is a world-famous fantasy artist and sculptor, and Marta Minujín is an innovative Conceptual artist.

Film and theatre

The Argentine film industry creates around 80 full-length motion pictures annually. The per capita number of screens is one of the highest in Latin America, and viewing per capita is the highest in the region. The world's first animated feature films were made and released in Argentina, by cartoonist Quirino Cristiani, in 1917 and 1918. Since the 1980s, Argentine films have achieved worldwide recognition, such as The Official Story (Best foreign film oscar in 1986), Man Facing Southeast, A Place in the World, Nine Queens, Son of the Bride, The Motorcycle Diaries, Blessed by Fire, and The Secret in Their Eyes, winner of the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. A new generation of Argentine directors has caught the attention of critics worldwide. Argentine composers Luis Enrique Bacalov and Gustavo Santaolalla have been honored with Academy Award for Best Original Score nods. Lalo Schifrin has received numerous Grammys and is best known for the Theme from Mission: Impossible.

Buenos Aires is one of the great capitals of theater. The Teatro Colón is a national landmark for opera and classical performances; its acoustics are considered the best in the world. With its theatre scene of national and international caliber, Corrientes Avenue is synonymous with the art. It is thought of as 'the street that never sleeps' and sometimes referred to as the Broadway of Buenos Aires. The Teatro General San Martín is one of the most prestigious along Corrientes Avenue and the Teatro Nacional Cervantes functions as the national stage theater of Argentina. The Teatro Argentino de La Plata, El Círculo in Rosario, Independencia in Mendoza and Libertador in Córdoba are also prominent. Griselda Gambaro, Copi, Roberto Cossa, Marco Denevi, Carlos Gorostiza, and Alberto Vaccarezza are a few of the more prominent Argentine playwrights. Julio Bocca, Jorge Donn, José Neglia and Norma Fontenla are some of the great ballet dancers of the modern era.

Music

Tango, the music and lyrics (often sung in a form of slang called lunfardo), is Argentina's musical symbol. The golden age of tango (1930 to mid-1950s) mirrored that of Jazz and Swing in the United States, featuring large orchestral groups too, like the bands of Osvaldo Pugliese, Anibal Troilo, Francisco Canaro, Julio de Caro and Juan D'Arienzo. Incorporating acoustic music and later, synthesizers into the genre after 1955, bandoneon virtuoso Ástor Piazzolla popularized "new tango" creating a more subtle, intellectual and listener-oriented trend. Today tango enjoys worldwide popularity; ever-evolving, neo-tango is a global phenomenon with renown groups like Tanghetto, Bajofondo and the Gotan Project.

Argentine rock developed as a distinct musical style in the mid-1960s, when Buenos Aires and Rosario became cradles of several garage groups and aspiring musicians. Today it is widely considered the most prolific and successful form of Rock en Español. Bands such as Soda Stereo or Sumo, and composers like Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta, and Fito Páez are referents of national culture. Seru Giran bridged the gap into the 1980s, when Argentine bands became popular across Latin America and elsewhere. Current popular bands include: Babasonicos, Rata Blanca, Horcas, Attaque 77, Bersuit, Los Piojos, Intoxicados, Catupecu Machu, Carajo and Miranda!.

European classical music is well represented in Argentina. Buenos Aires is home to the world-renowned Colón Theater. Classical musicians, such as Martha Argerich, Eduardo Alonso-Crespo, Daniel Barenboim, Eduardo Delgado and Alberto Lysy, and classical composers such as Juan José Castro and Alberto Ginastera are internationally acclaimed. Some cities have annual events and important classical music festivals like Semana Musical Llao Llao in San Carlos de Bariloche and the multitudinous Amadeus in Buenos Aires.

Beyond dozens of regional dances, a national Argentine folk style emerged in the 1930s. Perón's Argentina would give rise to Nueva Canción, as artists began expressing in their music objections to political themes. The style went on to influence the entirety of Latin American music. Today, Chango Spasiuk and Soledad Pastorutti have brought folk back to younger generations. Leon Gieco's folk-rock bridged the gap between Argentine folklore and Argentine rock, introducing both styles to millions overseas in successive tours.

Media

The print media industry is highly developed and independent of the government, with more than two hundred newspapers. The major national newspapers are from Buenos Aires, including the centrist Clarín, the best-selling daily in Latin America and the second most widely circulated in the Spanish-speaking world. Other nationally circulated papers are La Nación (center-right, published since 1870), Página/12 (left-wing), Ámbito Financiero (business conservative), Olé (sports) and Crónica (populist). The most circulated newsmagazine is Noticias.

Radio broadcasting in Argentina is predated only by radio in the United States, and began on August 27, 1920, when Richard Wagner's Parsifal was broadcast by a team of medical students led Enrique Susini in Buenos Aires' Teatro Coliseo. There are currently 260 AM broadcasting and 1150 FM broadcasting radio stations in Argentina.

The Argentine television industry is large and diverse, widely viewed in Latin America, and its productions seen around the world. Argentines enjoy the highest availability of cable and satellite television in Latin America, similar to percentages in North America.

Argentine comic artists have contributed prominently to national culture, including Alberto Breccia, Dante Quinterno, Oski, Francisco Solano López, Horacio Altuna, Guillermo Mordillo, Roberto Fontanarrosa, whose grotesque characters captured life's absurdities with quick-witted commentary, and Quino, known for the soup-hating Mafalda and her comic strip gang of childhood friends.

Sports

The official national sport of Argentina is pato, played with a six-handle ball on horseback, but the most popular sport is association football. The national football team has won 25 major international titles including two FIFA World Cups, two Olympic gold medals and fourteen Copa Américas. Over one thousand Argentine players play abroad, the majority of them in European football leagues. There are 331,811 registered football players, with increasing numbers of girls and women, who have organized their own national championships since 1991 and were South American champions in 2006.

The Argentine Football Association (AFA) was formed in 1893 and is the eighth oldest national football association in the world. The AFA today counts 3,377 football clubs, including 20 in the Premier Division. Since the AFA went professional in 1931, fifteen teams have won national tournament titles, including River Plate with 33 and Boca Juniors with 24. Over the last twenty years, futsal and beach soccer have become increasingly popular. The Argentine beach football team was one of four competitors in the first international championship for the sport, in Miami, in 1993.

Basketball is the second most popular sport; a number of basketball players play in the U.S. National Basketball Association and European leagues including Manu Ginóbili, Andrés Nocioni, Carlos Delfino, Luis Scola and Fabricio Oberto. The men's national basketball team won Olympic gold in the 2004 Olympics and the bronze medal in 2008. Argentina is currently ranked first by the International Basketball Federation. Argentina has an important rugby union football team, "Los Pumas", with many of its players playing in Europe. Argentina beat host nation France twice in the 2007 Rugby World Cup, placing them third in the competition. The Pumas are currently eighth in the official world rankings. Other popular sports include field hockey (particularly amongst women), tennis, auto racing, boxing, volleyball, polo and golf.

The Vamos vamos Argentina chant is a trademark of Argentine fans during sporting events.

Cuisine

Dishes & drinks from Argentina Besides many of the pasta, sausage and dessert dishes common to continental Europe, Argentines enjoy a wide variety of Indigenous and Criollo creations, which include empanadas (a stuffed pastry), locro (a mixture of corn, beans, meat, bacon, onion, and gourd), humitas and yerba mate, all originally indigenous Amerindian staples, the latter considered Argentina's national beverage. Other popular items include chorizo (a spicy sausage), facturas (Viennese-style pastry) and Dulce de leche, a sort of milk caramel jam.

The Argentine barbecue, asado as well as a parrillada, includes various types of meats, among them chorizo, sweetbread, chitterlings, and morcilla (blood sausage). Thin sandwiches, sandwiches de miga, are also popular. Argentines have the highest consumption of red meat in the world.

The Argentine wine industry, long among the largest outside Europe, has benefited from growing investment since 1992; in 2007, 60% of foreign investment worldwide in viticulture was destined to Argentina. The country is the fifth most important wine producer in the world, with the annual per capita consumption of wine among the highest. Malbec grape, a discardable varietal in France (country of origin), has found in the Province of Mendoza an ideal environment to successfully develop and turn itself into the world's best Malbec. Mendoza accounts for 70% of the country's total wine production. "Wine tourism" is important in Mendoza province, with the impressive landscape of the Cordillera de Los Andes and the highest peak in the Americas, Mount Aconcagua, high, providing a very desirable destination for international tourism.

National emblems

Argentina has a number of national symbols, some defined by law. The National Flag consists of three proportional horizontal light blue and white stripes with the Sun of May in the centre, and was designed by Manuel Belgrano in 1812; it was adopted as a national symbol July 20, 1816. The Coat of Arms of Argentina which represents the union of the provinces, came into use in 1813 as a seal for official documents.

The Argentine National Anthem was adopted in 1813, written by Vicente López y Planes with music by Blas Parera, although it was shortened to only three paragraphs without the vivid attacks against Spain. The Cockade of Argentina was first used during the May Revolution and was made official two years later. The Hornero, which habitates in almost all the national territory was made Argentina's national animal unanimously in 1927. The ceibo is its national flower and tree, pato, its national sport, asado its national dish, the Rhodochrosite its national stone, the Virgin of Lujan its patron saint and wine its national liquor.

Education

After independence Argentina built a national public education system in comparison to other nations, placing the country high in the global rankings of literacy. Today Argentina has a literacy rate of 97%, and three in eight adults over age 20 have completed secondary school studies or higher. School attendance is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 17. The Argentine school system consists of an elementary or lower school level lasting six or seven years, and a secondary or high school level lasting between five to six years. In the 1990s, the system was split into different types of high school instruction, called ''Educacion Secundaria'' and the ''Polimodal''. Some provinces adopted the ''Polimodal'' while others did not. A project in the executive branch to repeal this measure and return to a more traditional secondary level system was approved in 2006. President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento is credited with pushing for and implementing a free and modern education system in Argentina. The 1918 university reform shaped the current tripartite representation of most public universities.

Education is funded by tax payers at all levels except for the majority of graduate studies. There are many private school institutions in the primary, secondary and university levels. Around 11.4 million people were enrolled in formal education of some kind in 2006, including 1.5 million in the nation's 85 universities.

Public education in Argentina is tuition-free from the elementary to the university levels. Though literacy was nearly universal as early as 1947, the majority of Argentine youth had little access to education beyond the compulsory seven years of grade school during the first half of the 20th century; since then, when the tuition-free system was extended to the secondary and university levels, demand for these facilities has often outstripped budgets (particularly since the 1970s). Consequently, public education is now widely found wanting and in decline; this has helped private education flourish, though it has also caused a marked inequity between those who can afford it (usually the middle and upper classes) and the rest of society, as private schools often have no scholarship systems in place. Roughly one in four primary and secondary students and one in six university students attend private institutions.

There are thirty-eight public universities across the country, as well as numerous private ones. The University of Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, and the National Technological University are among the most important. Public universities faced cutbacks in spending during the 1980s and 1990s, which led to a decline in overall quality.

Health care

Health care is provided through a combination of employer and labor union-sponsored plans (''Obras Sociales''), government insurance plans, public hospitals and clinics and through private health insurance plans. Government efforts to improve public health can be traced to Spanish Viceroy Juan José de Vértiz's first Medical Tribunal of 1780. Following independence, medical schools were established at the University of Buenos Aires (1822) and the National University of Córdoba (1877). The training of doctors and nurses at these and other schools enabled the rapid development of health care cooperatives, which during the presidency of Juan Perón became publicly subsidized Obras Sociales. Today, these number over 300 (of which 200 are related to labor unions) and provide health care for half the population; the national INSSJP (popularly known as PAMI) covers nearly all of the five million senior citizens.

Health care costs amount to almost 10% of GDP and have been growing in pace with the proportion of Argentines over 65 (7% in 1970). Public and private spending have historically split this about evenly: public funds are mainly spent through Obras, which in turn, refer patients needing hospitalization to private and public clinics; private funds are spent evenly between private insurers' coverage and out-of-pocket expenses.

There are more than 153,000 hospital beds, 121,000 physicians and 37,000 dentists (ratios comparable to developed nations). The relatively high access to medical care has historically resulted in mortality patterns and trends similar to developed nations': from 1953 to 2005, deaths from cardiovascular disease increased from 20% to 23% of the total, those from tumors from 14% to 20%, respiratory problems from 7% to 14%, digestive maladies (non-infectious) from 7% to 11%, strokes a steady 7%, injuries, 6%, and infectious diseases, 4%. Causes related to senility led to many of the rest. Infant deaths have fallen from 19% of all deaths in 1953 to 3% in 2005.

The availability of health care has also reduced infant mortality from 70 per 1000 live births in 1948 to 12.1 in 2009 and raised life expectancy at birth from 60 years to 76. Though these figures compare favorably with global averages, they fall short of levels in developed nations and in 2006, Argentina ranked fourth in Latin America.

See also

International rankings of Argentina

List of Argentines

South America Life Quality Rankings

References

Sources

External links

Official website of Argentina

Argentina at ''UCB Libraries GovPubs''

LANIC Argentina page

Category:Countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean Category:Federal countries Category:Former Spanish colonies Category:G15 nations Category:G20 nations Category:Liberal democracies Category:Member states of Mercosur Category:Member states of the Union of South American Nations Category:Member states of the United Nations Category:Republics Category:South American countries Category:Spanish-speaking countries Category:States and territories established in 1816

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Post	President
Body	the Argentine Nation
Nativename	''Presidente de la Nación Argentina''
Insignia	Standard_of_the_President_of_Argentina.svg‎
Insigniasize	130px
Insigniacaption	Presidential Standard
Incumbent	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Incumbentsince	December 10, 2007
Style	''Excelentísimo Señor (m) Excelentísima Señora (f)''
Residence	Casa Rosada
Termlength	Four years, renewable once
Inaugural	Bernardino Rivadavia
Formation	''first:'' 1826 Constitution''current:'' 1853 Constitution, (reformed 1994).
Website	Office of the President }}

The President of the Argentine Nation (), usually known as the President of Argentina, is the head of state of Argentina. Under the national Constitution, the President is also the chief executive of the federal government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.

Through Argentine history, the office of the Head of State has undergone many changes, both in its title as in its features and powers. The current President is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was sworn in on 10 December 2007.

Features of the office

Requirements

Section 90 of the Argentine Constitution establishes the requirements for becoming President. The President must be a natural-born citizen of the country, or have been born to Argentine citizens if born abroad. The President must also meet the same requirements as a Senator.

Sections 94 to 98 discuss the electoral requirements. A two-round system is used (Section 94). In order to win the election in the first turn, the winning candidate's party must receive ''either'' more than 45 percent of so-called ''"votos positivos"'' (Section 97) ''or'' at least 40 percent of ''"votos positivos"'' ''and'' be more than 10 percent ahead of the candidate with the second-highest percentage (Section 98). "Votos positivos" are the sum of all votes validly cast for any of the candidates, leaving out of the count blank and spoilt votes.

If no candidate obtains the necessary votes to win in the first round, then the two most voted candidates compete in the second round, held two weeks later, when the candidate beating by at least one vote becomes elected president.

Term duration

Under the 1994 constitutional amendment, the President serves for four years, with a possibility of immediate reelection for one more term. However, unlike the President of the United States, in Argentina a person may be reelected again after serving for two terms, and staying out of office for the following. So after serving for two consecutive periods, the president is not allowed to run for a third consecutive one, but may return for the two following elections and so on. Naturally there is no limit for a person to be a candidate if he or she does not win the elections.

Also, a person being vice-president for two consecutive periods, or president and then vice-president, or vice-president and then president, is under the same restrictions mentioned above.

Under the constitution of 1853, the President served for six years, with no possibility of consecutive reelection. In 1949, reelection for an indefinite number of terms was allowed (and disabled in 1957). After the 1966 military coup, the rulers promulgated a law establishing terms of four years, terms which were never completed because of political instability.

History of the Office of Head of State

The origins of Argentina as a nation can be traced to 1776, when it was separated by the Spanish King from the existing Viceroyalty of Peru, creating the new Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The Head of State continued to be the King, but was represented locally by the Viceroy. These Viceroys were seldom natives of the country.

By the May Revolution of May 25, 1810, the first Argentine autonomous government, known as the ''Primera Junta'', was formed in Buenos Aires. It was later known as the ''Junta Grande'' when representatives from the provinces joined. These early attempts of self-government where succeeded by two Triumvirates and, although the first ''juntas'' had presidents, the King of Spain was still regarded as Head of State (as independence had not yet been declared), and the executive power was not still in the hands of a single person.

This power was vested in one man when the position of Supreme Director was created by the 1813 National Assembly. The Supreme Directors became Heads of State after Independence was declared on 9 July 1816, but there were not yet truly a presidential system.

In 1819, Congress declared Independence and composed a Constitution. This established an executive figure, named Supreme Director, who was vested with presidential powers. This constitution gave the Supreme Director the power of appointing Governors of the provinces. Due to political circumstances, this constitution never came into force, and the central power was dissolved, leaving the country a federation of provinces.

A new constitution was drafted in 1826. This constitution was the first to create a President, although this office retained the powers described in the 1819 constitution. This constitution did come into force, resulting in the election of the first President, Bernardino Rivadavia. Because of the Argentina-Brazil War, Rivadavia resigned after a short time, and the office was dissolved shortly after.

A civil war between ''unitarios'' (unitarians, i. e. Buenos Aires centralists) and ''federales'' (federalists) ensued in the following decades. In this time, there was no central authority, and the closest to that was the Chairman of Foreign Relations, typically the Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires. The last to bear this title was Juan Manuel de Rosas, who in the last years of his governorship was elected Supreme Chief of the Confederation, gaining effective rule of the rest of the country.

In 1852, Rosas was deposed, and a constitutional convention was summoned. This constitution, still in force, established a national federal government, with the office of the President. The term was fixed as six years, with no possibility of reelection. The first elected President under the constitution was Justo José de Urquiza, but Buenos Aires seceded from the Argentine Confederation as the State of Buenos Aires. Bartolomé Mitre was the first president of the unified country, when Buenos Aires rejoined the Confederation. Thus, Rivadavia, Urquiza and Mitre and considered the first presidents of Argentina by different historians: Rivadavia for being the first one to use the title, Urquiza for being the first one to rule under the 1853 constitution, and Mitre for being the first president of Argentina under its current national limits.

In 1930, and again in 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976, military coups deposed elected Presidents. In 1966 and 1976, federal government was undertaken by a military junta, where power was shared by the chiefs of the armed forces. In 1962, the President of the Senate ruled, but in the other cases, a military chief assumed the title of President.

It is debatable whether these military presidents can properly be called Presidents, as there are issues with the legitimacy of their governments. The position of the current Argentine government is that military Presidents Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri and Jorge Rafael Videla were explicitly ''not'' legitimate presidents. They, and their immediate successors were denied the right to a presidential pension after the conclusion of their terms. The status of earlier military presidents, however, remains more uncertain.

De facto governments

Following military coups that overthrew the constitutional government was de facto military presidents in 1930, 1943–1944, 1955–1958, 1966–1973 and 1976-1983 that brought in addition to the powers of the president also corresponding to Congress. The subsequent analysis of the validity of their actions led to the subsequent formulation of the doctrine of de facto governments.

That doctrine was nullified by the constitutional reform of 1994 (Article 36), which stated "usurpers" who have stopped the enforcement of the Constitution by acts of force.

Article 29 of the Constitution of 1853 had an article that he considered the sum of public power as 'treason', but was referred to the de jure rulers. For this reason in the constitutional reform of 1994 included Article 36 which says:

Article 36. This Constitution shall rule even when its observance is interrupted by acts of force against the constitutional order and democratic system. These acts shall be irreparably null. Their authors will be subject to the penalty provided in Section 29, disqualified in perpetuity from holding public office and excluded from the benefits of pardon and commutation of sentences.

Who have the same penalties as a result of these actions, assume the powers foreseen for the authorities of this Constitution or those of the provinces, those civil and criminally liable for their actions. The respective actions shall be barred.

All citizens have the right of resistance to those committing acts of force stated in this article.

Also attempt against the democratic system who incurs in serious fraudulent offense against the state that entails enrichment, shall be disqualified for the time specified by law to hold public office.

The Congress shall enact a law on public ethics for the exercise of the function.

In summary the article states:

Absolute nullity of the acts issued by government installed by force;

The authors shall be punished as infamous traitors to the Fatherland "

These crimes are barred and the authors can not receive the benefit of the amnesty;

Every citizen has the right to resistance against these acts of force.

Complements

The most famous presidential airplane, known as "Tango 01" (by analogy with U.S. Air Force One), owes its name to the denomination of ''T'' (pronounced ''tango'' in the NATO alphabet) for ''Transport'', which creates an interesting word-game for the Argentine classical Tango music. The presidential helicopter is the usual means of transport between the ''Quinta de Olivos'' and the ''Casa Rosada''.

Line of succession

Vice-President

The office of Vice-President was established by the 1853 Constitution for the purpose of providing a succession in case the President is unable to complete its term. The Argentine Constitution (art. 88) entitles the Vice-President to exercise the role and duties of the President, both in the case of a temporary absence and in the case of a permanent absence due to health reasons, death, resignation or removal.

Line of succesion

In the absence of both the President and the Vice-President, the succession is regulated by the Law 20,972 ("''Acephaly Law''"). It provides that the Executive Power must be temporarily exercised (without assuming the title of President) by the provisional President of the Senate. In its absence, by the President of the Chamber of Deputies. In the absence of both, by the President of the Supreme Court.

In case of the permanent absence of both the President and the Vice-President, due to resignation, death, or removal, the Constitution (art. 88) entitles the National Congress Assembled to select a new President from among the current Senators, Deputies and Governors, within the following two days of the death or resignation of the former President, and to provide him or her with a mandate to call for elections.

Living former presidents

Statistics

President elected to the most terms: Juan Perón, three terms, elected in 1946, 1951 and 1973.

President who held office for most time: Julio Argentino Roca, for 12 years, in two terms (1880–1886 and 1898–1904).

President who held office for most time continuously: Carlos Menem, for 10 years and 5 months, in two terms (1989–1999).

First President elected in the twentieth century: Manuel Quintana, in 1904.

First President elected in the twentyfirst century: Néstor Carlos Kirchner, in 2003.

First ''de facto'' President: José Félix Uriburu, 1930.

Last ''de facto'' President: Reynaldo Bignone, left in 1983.

First female President: Isabel Perón (1974–1976).

First elected female President: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in 2007.

Presidents who died in office: Manuel Quintana (1906), Roque Sáenz Peña (1914) and Juan Perón (1974).

Presidents who were assassinated: Justo José de Urquiza (1870) and Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (1970), both after concluding their terms.

Living former presidents as of 27 October 2010: Isabel Perón, Carlos Menem, Fernando de la Rúa, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá and Eduardo Alberto Duhalde, and dictators Roberto M. Levingston, Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone.

See also

List of Presidents of Argentina

List of Vice-Presidents of Argentina

History of Argentina

Politics of Argentina

Bibliography

References

External links

Official site of the Argentine presidency

ElHistoriador.com.ar (presidents and ministres of the Repúblic Argentine).

Apodos: la historia también tiene sentido del humor

Category:Presidents of Argentina Category:Government of Argentina

ca:President de la Nació Argentina da:Argentinas præsidenter es:Presidente de la Nación Argentina fr:Liste des présidents de la Nation argentine io:Listo di prezidisti di Arjentinia id:Daftar kepala negara Argentina He:נשיא ארגנטינה ru:Президенты Аргентины fi:Argentiinan presidentti

name	Néstor Carlos Kirchner
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	María Emma Mejía Vélez
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	Eduardo Arnold (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
order6	First Gentleman of Argentina
term start6	10 December 2007
term end6	27 October 2010
preceded6	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
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. Kirchner's four-year presidency was notable for presiding over a dramatic fall in poverty and unemployment, following the economic crisis of 2001.

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. Starting October 29 afternoon, a massive popular procession accompanied Kirchner's remains from Casa Rosada to the metropolitan airport, and then from the airport of Río Gallegos to the cemetery.

Biography

Early life

Kirchner was born in Río Gallegos, in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz. His mother, María Juana Ostoić Dragnic, is of Croatian descent 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.

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. The improved economic situation was achieved by a neo-Keynesian expansion of consumption and investment expenditure, in contrast to the neo-liberalism of the Menem Government. Subsequent studies showed that the province had a better distribution of wealth and lower levels of poverty, unemployment, and social unrest than most other provinces, second only to Buenos Aires.

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

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.

Under Kirchner, Argentine foreign policy shifted from the "automatic alignment" with the United States during the 1990s, to one stressing stronger ties (economic and political) within Mercosur and with other Latin American countries, and rejecting the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

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.

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.

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, and another from the airport of Río Gallegos to the cemetery. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner presided over the funeral, making her first public appearance since Néstor's death.

Argentina declared three days of national mourning. Condolences came from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the European Union, the OAS, 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.

Personal style and ideology

Néstor Kirchner is considered at times as a left-wing president, but that consideration is relative. Although Kirchner was to the left of previous Argentine presidents, from Raúl Alfonsín to Eduardo Duhalde, and contemporary Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, he was to the right of other latin american presidents as Hugo Chávez or Fidel Castro. His strong nationalist approach to the Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute is closer to Right-wing politics, and he has not considered classic left-wing policies such as socialization of production or the nationalization of the public services privatized during the presidency of Carlos Menem. He has not attempted either to modify the institutional system, the church–state relations or disestablish the armed forces.

Néstor Kirchner is a Peronist, and manages the political power as the historical Peronist leaders have traditionally done. One of the characteristics of his political style is the constant generation of controversies with other political or social forces, and the polarization of public opinion. This strategy was used against financial sectors, military, police, foreign countries, international bodies, newspapers, and even Duhalde himself, with varying levels of success. The rise of Kirchnerism reenacted the then outdated rivalry between Peronists and Antiperonists, and the use of the "Gorila" pejorative term.

Kirchner sought to generate an image contrasting that of former presidents Carlos Menem and Fernando de la Rúa. Menem was seen as frivolous, and De la Rúa as doubtful, so Kirchner worked to be seen as serious and determined.

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.

Kirchner emphasised holding businesses accountable to Argentine 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'').

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, Néstor 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.

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:Secretaries General of UNASUR 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 myocardial infarction

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honorific-prefix	Her Excellency
name	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
order	55th President of Argentina
term start	10 December 2007
predecessor	Néstor Kirchner
vicepresident	Julio Cobos
order2	First Lady of Argentina
term start2	25 May 2003
term end2	10 December 2007
preceded2	Hilda Duhalde
succeeded2	Néstor Kirchner (First Spouse of Argentina)
order3	Senator of Argentina For Buenos Aires Province
order4	Senator of Argentina For Santa Cruz
term3	10 December 2005 – 28 November 2007
term4	10 December 2001 – 9 December 200510 December 1995 – 3 December 1997
order6	Deputy of Argentina For Santa Cruz
term start6	10 December 1997
term end6	9 December 2001
birth date	February 19, 1953
birth place	La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
spouse	Néstor Kirchner (1975–2010 (his death))
party	Front for Victory (FPV)Justicialist Party (PJ)
children	Máximo KirchnerFlorencia Kirchner
profession	Lawyer
alma mater	National University of La Plata
religion	Roman Catholicism
Signature	CF SIGNATURE.svg
Website	The Casa Rosada }}

Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner (; born 19 February 1953), commonly known as Cristina Fernández or Cristina Kirchner (or simply Cristina), is the 55th and current President of Argentina and the widow of former President Néstor Kirchner. She is Argentina's first elected female President, and the second female President ever to serve (after Isabel Martínez de Perón, 1974–1976). A Justicialist, Fernández served one term as National Deputy and three terms as National Senator for both Santa Cruz and Buenos Aires Provinces.

A native of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Fernández is a graduate of the National University of La Plata. She met her husband during her studies, and they moved to Santa Cruz to work as lawyers. In May 1991, she was elected to the provincial legislature. Between 1995 and 2007, she was repeatedly elected to the Argentine National Congress, both as a National Deputy and National Senator. During Kirchner's presidency (2003–2007) she acted as First Lady. Fernández was chosen as the Front for Victory presidential candidate in 2007. In the October 2007 general election she obtained 45.3% of the vote and a 22% lead over her nearest rival, avoiding the need for a runoff. She was inaugurated on December 10, 2007. As a First Lady, and later President, she has become a fashion icon for women, a notable advocate for human rights, poverty awareness and health improvement.

Personal life

Fernández was born in Ringuelet, a suburb west of La Plata, Province of Buenos Aires, daughter of Eduardo Fernández and Ofelia Esther Wilhelm. She studied law at the National University of La Plata during the 1970s and became active in the Peronist Youth. During her studies there, she met her future spouse, Néstor Kirchner. They were married on March 9, 1975, and had two children: Máximo and Florencia. Néstor died on October 27, 2010 after suffering a heart attack.

Political career

Fernández started her political career in the Peronist Youth movement of the Justicialist Party in the 1970s. During the period of authoritarian rule in the country, she and Néstor dropped out of politics and practiced law in Río Gallegos. She picked up politics again in the late 1980s, and was elected to the Santa Cruz Provincial Legislature in 1989, a position to which she was re-elected in 1993.

In 1995, Fernández was elected to represent Santa Cruz in the Senate. She was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1997, and in 2001, returned to the Senate. Fernández helped with her husband's successful campaign for the presidency in 2003, but without making joint public appearances. In the April 27, 2003, presidential election first round, former president Carlos Saúl Menem won the greatest number of votes (25%), but failed to get the votes necessary to win an overall majority. A second-round run-off vote between Menem and runner-up Néstor Kirchner was scheduled for May 18. Feeling certain that he was about to face a sound electoral defeat, Menem decided to withdraw his candidacy, thus automatically making Kirchner the new president, with 22% of the votes. This was the lowest number in the history of the country.

During her husband's term, Fernández became the First Lady of the country. In that role, she worked as an itinerant ambassador for his government. Her highly combative speech style polarized Argentine politics, recalling the style of Eva Perón. Although she repeatedly rejected the comparison later, Cristina Fernández once said in an interview that she identified herself "with the Evita of the hair in a bun and the clenched fist before a microphone" (the typical image of Eva Perón during public speeches) more than with the "miraculous Eva" of her mother's time, who had come "to bring work and the right to vote for women".

At the October 2005 legislative elections, Fernández was her party's main candidate for Senator in the Province of Buenos Aires district. She ran a heated campaign against Hilda González de Duhalde, the wife of former president Eduardo Duhalde. Fernández won the elections by 45,77%, followed by González de Duhalde with 20,43%.

Election to Presidency of Argentina

With Fernández leading all the pre-election polls by a wide margin, her challengers were trying to force her into a run-off. She needed either more than 45% of the vote, or 40% of the vote and a lead of more than 10% over her nearest rival, to win outright. Fernández won the election in the first round with 45.3% of the vote, followed by 22% for Elisa Carrió (candidate for the Civic Coalition) and 16% for former Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna. Eleven others split the remaining 15%. Kirchner was popular among the suburban working class and the rural poor, while Carrió received more support from the urban middle class, as did Lavagna. Of note, Kirchner lost the election in the three largest cities (Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Rosario), although she won in most other places elsewhere, including the large provincial capitals such as Mendoza and Tucumán.

On November 14, the president-elect publicly announced the names of her new cabinet, which was sworn in on December 10. Of the 12 ministers appointed, seven were already ministers in Néstor Kirchner's government, while the other five took office for the first time. Three other ministries were created afterwards.

The president elect began a four-year term on December 10, 2007, facing challenges including inflation, union demands for higher salaries, private investment in key areas, lack of institutional credibility (exemplified by the controversy surrounding the national statistics bureau, INDEC), utility companies demanding authorization to raise their fees, low availability of cheap credit to the private sector, and the upcoming negotiation of the defaulted foreign debt with the Paris Club. Kirchner was the second female president of Argentina, after Isabel Martínez de Perón, but unlike Perón, Kirchner was the head of the ballot, whereas Isabel Perón was elected as vice president of Juan Domingo Perón and became president after his death. The transition from Néstor Kirchner to Cristina Kirchner was also the first time when a democratic head of state was replaced by his spouse, without involving the death of any of them. Néstor Kirchner stayed active in politics despite not being the president, and worked alongside Cristina 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. However, on January 31, in a special meeting with Kirchner, the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, Earl Anthony Wayne, clarified that the allegations "were never made by the United States government," and the dispute cooled down. Having said that the prosecutors making the charges are part of the independent judicial branch of the U.S. government

Elisa Carrió and María Estenssoro, both high ranking members of the main opposition parties, have claimed that the Argentine government's response to the allegations and its criticism of the U.S. are a "smokescreen", that the U.S. involvement in the affair was merely symptomatic, and the root cause of the scandal is corruption in the Argentine and Venezuelan governments.

2008

Riding a wave of approval during a dramatic economic recovery from a 2001–2002 crisis, the Kirchners' FPV had prevailed enjoyed increasingly large majorities in Congress, reaching their peak following the 2007 general elections (with 153 Congressmen and 44 Senators, at the time). In March 2008, Kirchner introduced a new sliding-scale taxation system for agricultural exports, effectively raising levies on soybean exports from 35% to 44% at the time of the announcement. This led to a nationwide lockout by farming associations, starting on March 12, with the aim of forcing the government to back down on the new taxation scheme. They were joined on March 25 by thousands of pot-banging demonstrators massed around the Buenos Aires Obelisk and in front of the presidential palace.

Protests extended across the country. In Buenos Aires, hours after Kirchner attacked farmers for their two-week strike and "abundant" profits, there were violent incidents between government supporters and opponents, to which the police was accused of wilfully turning a blind eye. The media was harshly critical of Luis D'Elía, a former government official who took part in the incidents, with some media sources and members of the opposition (notably Elisa Carrió), claiming that he and his followers had disrupted the protest pursuant to the government's orders. On April 1, the government organised a rally during which thousands of pro-government protesters marched through downtown Buenos Aires in support of the bill increasing Argentina's export taxes on the basis of a sliding scale; at the event, Kirchner called on farmers to act "as part of a country, not as owners of a country."

In April 2008, on the 26th anniversary of the Falklands War, Kirchner stepped up Argentine claims to the Falkland Islands. She called Argentina's rights to the islands "inalienable".

The large majorities in the Argentine Congress enjoyed by the Front for Victory could not ultimately guarantee a legislative blank check: on July 16, 2008, the presidentially sponsored bill met with deadlock, and was ultimately defeated by the tie-breaking "no" vote of Vice President Julio Cobos himself. The controversy cost the FPV 16 Congressmen and 4 Senators by way of defections. This put an end to the 2008 Argentine government conflict with the agricultural sector, though it cost Cobos access to the executive branch of the government. He was reportedly considered "a traitor" by the followers of Kirchner's administration. Cobos denied that he would resign, although the relationship between the President and the Vice President has an uncertain future.

A poll result published in ''El País'', Spain's most widely circulated daily newspaper, revealed that following the protests, Fernández's approval rating had "plummeted" from 57.8% at the start of her administration to an unprecedented 23%. Once recovered from the conflict with agrarian interests, Cristina Kirchner's public approval improved; her job approval ratings rose by 30% (''Poliarquía'', 08/22/08). Her inflexible handling of the protests and reluctance to review the policies that sparked the protest have led to speculation that it is her husband, predecessor in office and current leader of the Justicialist Party, Néstor Kirchner, who controls her administration. The British weekly newspaper ''The Economist'' has described this situation as Kirchner "paying the price for her husband's pig-headedness", and as of February 2009, her job approval rating was 28%.

On October 20, 2008, Fernández proposed the transfer of nearly US$30 billion in private pension holdings to the social security system, a law that was passed by Congress in late November.

President Cristina Kirchner is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.

Fernández was invited to the prestigious Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy in Washington, D.C., on November 15, 2008, by President George W. Bush. During her stay in Washington, she held meetings with Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown), Madeleine Albright (representing U.S. President-elect Barack Obama), Senator Christopher Dodd and Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd at the Park Hyatt Hotel. She then attended the G20 meeting in London April 2, 2009 and was given a seat of honour at the dinner held the night before at 10 Downing Street, when she was seated across from President Obama.

Also in the year 2008, Cristina Kirchner vetoed the "Law of protection of the glaciers" ( ), which had been approved almost unanimously in Congress (only 3 senators opposed the law). Critics have stated that the President's attitude would threaten over 75% of the country's water reserves.

Cristina Kirchner has travelled extensively as president, visiting Algeria, Brazil, Cuba, Egypt, France, Libya, Mexico, Qatar, Russia, Spain, the UK, the U.S. and Venezuela, among other nations.

2009

Following the June 28, 2009, mid-term elections, the ruling FPV's party list lost its absolute majority in both houses of Congress, shedding a further 24 seats in the Lower House (including allies) and 4 in the Senate. They lost in the four most important electoral districts (home to 60% of Argentines), and among these, the loss was narrow only in the Province of Buenos Aires. The FPV obtained a very narrow victory, overall, as a percentage of the national vote, and retained their plurality in Congress. This will be reflected in strengthened opposition alliances, notably the center-right Unión Pro, the centrist Civic Coalition and the left-wing Proyecto Sur, when elected candidates in both chambers take office on December 11, 2009.

Allegations of impropriety have contributed increasingly to the Kirchners' decline in approval, as well. The couple's own, latest federal financial disclosure in July 2009 revealed an increase in their personal assets by 7 times, since Néstor Kirchner's 2003 inaugural. The increase was partly the product of land deals in El Calafate, a scenic, Santa Cruz Province town where the couple has long vacationed and own property (including of land and two hotels).

On October 17, 2009, President Cristina Fernández proposed the compulsory submission of DNA samples in cases related to crimes against humanity, in a move lauded by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, but excoriated by opposition figures as a political move against Clarín Media Group Chairperson Ernestina Herrera de Noble, who is in litigation over her suspected adoption of two children of the "disappeared," and whose hitherto cordial relations with Kirchnerism had recently soured. Similar motives are alleged by the opposition against the president's Media Law, which would restrict the number of media licences per proprietor and allocate a greater share of these to state and NGOs, thereby limiting the influence of ''Clarín'' and the conservative ''La Nación''. The president's proposed enactment of mandatory primary elections for all of Argentina's myriad political parties, and for every elected post, was likewise rejected by opposition figures, who charged that these reforms could stymy minor parties and the formation of new ones.

Following charges of embezzlement filed by a local attorney, Enrique Piragini, on October 29, Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide ordered an accounting expert to investigate the origin of the Kirchners’ wealth. Public records show that since their arrival to power in 2003, the declared assets of Cristina and Néstor Kirchner have increased by 572%. A preliminary report on the investigation by the Argentine Anti Corruption Office (OA) established that the official figures provided by the Kirchners "don't stack up". The investigation was suspended by Judge Oyarbide on December 30, though a week later, Piragini appealed the ruling.

On 29 October 2009 she launched a universal child benefit plan ( ) as a way to fight poverty with the goal to reach approximately five million children and youths. Since its creation, the program has been lauded for having boosted school attendance rates and reduced poverty amongst families

2010

The year began with controversy surrounding the president's order that a US$6.7 billion escrow account be opened at the Central Bank for the purpose of retiring high-interest bonds, whose principal is tied to inflation. The move met with the opposition of Central Bank President Martín Redrado, who refused to implement it, and following an impasse, he was dismissed by presidential decree on January 7, 2010.

Redrado refused to abide by the initial decree removing him from the presidency of the Central Bank, however, and petitioned for a judicial power to keep him in office. Accordingly, the president enacted another decree for his dismissal, citing "mis-conduct" on Redrado's part. The legitimacy of this new decree was questioned as well, as his dismissal would deny Redrado due process. Congress was at a recess period at the time, but most of its opposition members considered returning to override the decrees through an extraordinary session. The session became a source of controversy as well: Kirchner considered that, according to the 63rd article of the Constitution, only the President may call for an extraordinary session while the Congress is in recess. Cobos replied instead that all regulations concerning decrees require the immediate advise and consent of Congress, that the body's by-laws (56 and 57) allow extraordinary sessions called by any member, and that the commission formed for that purpose functions all at all times, even during recess.

The planned use of foreign exchange reserves through a Necessity and Urgency Decree was itself questioned by several opposition figures, who argued that such a decree may not meet a threshold of "necessity" and "urgency" required by the Constitution of Argentina for its enactment. Judge María José Sarmiento handed down a ruling preventing said use of reserves, and the Government reacted by appealing the ruling. President Kirchner defended the policy as a cost saving maneuver, whereby government bonds paying out 15 percent interest would be retired from the market. The move, however, also provided numerous vulture funds (holdouts from the 2005 debt restructuring who had resorted to the courts in a bid for higher returns on their defaulted bonds) a legal argument against the central bank's autarky, and thus facilitated a judgement lien on January 12 against a central bank account in New York.

Judge Sarmiento also annulled the decree that removed Redrado and reinstated him as President of the Central Bank the following day. The ruling also refuted claims of mis-conduct cited by President Cristina Kirchner to justify his removal. International media described the attempted removal of Redrado as authoritarian, while criticizing the planned use of reserves for debt retirement, as well as accelerating spending growth, as fiscally irresponsible. Opposition Congresswoman Elisa Carrió, a likely candidate in the upcoming 2011 presidential campaign, has raised the possibility of impeachment procedures against Mrs. Kirchner.

At the start of the month of February 2010, one of Cristina Fernández's private asessors resigned his post due to the claims of "illicit gain". Just two weeks afterwards, another of her private asesors, Julio Daniel Álvarez, resigned for the same reason.

On February 22, 2010, British oil explorer Desire Petroleum, started drilling exploration wells some north of the disputed Falkland/Malvinas Islands, despite strong opposition from Argentina which took the issue to the Latin America and Caribbean Presidents summit where it received unanimous support. According to geological surveys carried out in 1998, there could be of oil in the area around the islands but the 2010 drill carried out poor results. As a result Desire's share price plummeted and the company announced further work could begin later this year (2010).

In March 2010 Fernández made an historic amends trip to Peru a country with whom relations had been adversely affected following the Carlos Menem administration's illegal sale of weapons to Ecuador in the 1990s. In the same month Fernández received the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Buenos Aires, where she received great support for the way her administration was managing the foreign debt issue and emphasized the positive relationship between the two countries something which was not reported by local major news media

In April 2010, Chile's new president Sebastián Piñera was received in Buenos Aires on his first foreign tour abroad and reaffirmed the current strong ties between the two countries. following which Cristina Fernández attended the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC, after which President Barack Obama thanked Argentina for its role in international stabilization and earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. Back in Buenos Aires, she received the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev the first such visit in Argentina's history. Two days later, the Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng arrived. On April 19, she was invited to the bicentennary of the independence celebrations in Venezuela, where she was the main speaker in front of the National Assembly. She signed 25 trade agreements with Venezuela relating to food, technology and energy.

In May 2010, the President traveled to Spain for the European Union-Latin America and the Caribbean summit, where she was asked to compare the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis and the 2001 Argentine's default. Back in Buenos Aires, during the Argentina Bicentennial celebrations, Cristina Fernández did not participate in the military parade of 5,000 troops (which included delegations of Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, etc.) on the 9 de Julio Avenue, which was considered a gest of contempt towards the Argentine Armed Forces.

In June 2010, her administration completed the debt swap (which was started by former president Néstor Kirchner in 2005) clearing 92% of the bad debt left from its sovereign default in 2001. Argentina external debt now represents 30% of the country's GDP, whilst the Central Bank foreign reserves reached $49 billion {USD}, more than the amount that was available when the decision to pay foreign debt earlier in the year was taken.

Also in June 2010, she gave a speech at the International Trade Union Confederation (CSI) Global Summit, being held in Vancouver, Canada where she asserted that "many Euro-zone countries today have applied the same policies that led Argentina to disaster (in 2001)," stating, also, that "it's an inescapable responsibility of the government to intervene in the financial system.". Later, she traveled to Toronto to attend the G20 Summit and spoke against the EU fiscal austerity plans fearing this would lead to a slow down in the global economy. French President Nicolas Sarkozy responded by saying that the Latin American representatives who reject the Eurozone adjustments do not know the "harrassment" to the Euro , to which Cristina Fernández responded that he shouldn't "question somebody" just because he doesn't "agree" with what they say and also clarified that Argentina is interested in the euro because parts of its reserves are held in euros and that she's "sure that Sarkozy does not have even one cent in Argentine pesos in his Central Bank.". Later addressing the press she added, "In Latin America we can give cathedra about harassment and seizure." She also had a chance to speak with new British PM David Cameron.

In July 2010, she traveled to the People's Republic of China with the goal of, according the Chinese embassy at Buenos Aires, strengthening the strategic partnership between the two countries On her return, she signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Argentina. This strained the government's already strained relationship with the Catholic Church. She also reaffirmed her policy of debt reduction in announcing to continue to pay foreign debt with Central Bank foreign reserves which reached a country historic record of $51 billion USD in July. In August 2010, Cristina Fernández began to use her Twitter account. She also preceded the 39th Mercosur summit at San Juan where the trade bloc agrees to reduce customs fees and signs a free-trade deal with Egypt

On September 2010, it was announced that Argentina was elected president of the Group of 77+China and prepared to act as a ‘bridge” with G-20 major economies to which it also belongs Cristina Fernández visited Chile during their Bicentenary celebrations where she also assisted at the baptism of a Chilean baby, Anaís Escobar Maldonado, born in the Argentine Hospital deployed at Curico after the earthquake. The visit had a high profile in the media mainly because of the possible extradition to Chile of Sergio Apablaza. She met with president Sebastian Piñera and participated in the festivities at the national stadium. She also confirmed the celebration of the III bi-national cabinet meeting for next October. Fernández then departed for New York to give her United Nations General Assembly speech where she once again criticized Britain over the Falklands (Malvinas) issue, and Iran for the 1994 AMIA bombing whilst giving her support for an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and an eventual Palestinian state. On September 30 she hosted the UNASUR presidents' emergency summit at Buenos Aires due the Ecuador crisis and started an official visit to Germany the following day in order to participate as a Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair and meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel. In October she inaugurates the III News Agencies World Congress to be held in Bariloche. This same month, and as part of the 2006 civilian nuclear-power reactivation program, Fernández reopened the Pilcaniyeu uranium enrichment plant, put on ice in the 1990s, amid worsening shortages of natural gas. Following the death of her spouse (see below), Cristina Fernández resumed activities and flew to Asia for the G20 Seoul summit. After her return she announces that the Paris Club agrees to debt talks without the IMF intervention as proposed by Argentina since 2008. These negotiations will result in the settlement of the last portion of the sovereign debt defaulted in the 2001 crisis after the successful restructuring debts of 2005 and 2009. On November she also participated on the UNASUR Summit at Guyana after which will host the XX Ibero-American Summit at Mar del Plata

On the morning of 27 October 2010, her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner, died of a heart failure at the Hospital Jose Formenti in El Calafate, Santa Cruz Province. He had been subject to two coronary interventions earlier in the year (2010). On February 7, 2010, he developed problems with the common carotid artery and needed surgery. On September 11, he was intervened because of coronary artery blockage and needed an angioplasty. Néstor Kirchner had a massive state funeral at the Casa Rosada.

2011

The 2011 year is influenced by the general election that will take place in October. The youth organization the Cámpora increased its influence within the government, disputing offices and candidacies with the traditional structures of the Justicialist Party and the CGT. Cristina Fernández chose Daniel Filmus as mayor of Buenos Aires candidate. Nevertheless, she has not clarified whether she will run for a new term as president or not. On 21 June 2011 Cristina Fernández announced she will run for a second term as president. A few days later, she announced that Amado Boudou would run for the vicepresidency in her ticket. Most candidates for deputies were chosen personally by her, favoring the members of the Cámpora.

Cristina Fernandez had international conflicts with Brazil, regarding a disagreement over the trade quotas between the countries. She also had conflicts with the United States, after seizing a plane of the US military.

Cabinet

On November 14, 2007, the president-elect publicly announced the names of her new cabinet, which was sworn in on December 10. Of the 12 ministers appointed, seven were already ministers in Néstor Kirchner's government, while the other five took office for the first time. Three other ministries were created afterwards.

Relationship with the media

Fernández and her husband have always had a tempestuous relationship with the national media, particularly from 2007 onwards (despite previous excellent rapport) with Grupo Clarín corporation which is owner of video cable networks, multiple TV Channels, radios, the main newspaper and through most of a decade before 2010 the monopoly of the Argentine football, a so-called opinion-former.

In April 2008, Kirchner received a stern public rebuke from the Argentine media owners Association (Spanish: ''Asociación de Entidades Periodísticas Argentinas'', or ADEPA) for having publicly accused the popular cartoonist Hermenegildo Sábat of behaving like a "quasi mafioso". In addition, a government proposal to create a watchdog to monitor racism and discrimination was received with suspicion by ADEPA, who called it a "covert attempt to control the media". Néstor Kirchner, Cristina's husband and predecessor in office, received a similar rebuke for publicly and falsely denouncing Joaquín Morales Solá, a journalist critical of the government, for having produced an inflammatory text published in 1978.

On September 11, 2009, she advanced the decriminalization of injurious calumny against public officials, a charge which had, in 2000, resulted in a prison term of one year for Eduardo Kimel, a journalist investigating the San Patricio Church massacre of 1976. She drew fire from a highly controversial Audiovisual Media Law proposed shortly afterwards, however. Defended by the government as a reform intended to fragment ownership of media companies as to encourage plurality of opinion, the bill was criticised by part of the opposition as a means to silence voices critical of the government, especially those in the Clarín media group (the country's largest). However, a significant amount of opposing congressmen voted in favor of the law, as they considered it was clearly an improvement on the existing one, and that the government had been willing to negotiate and modify parts of the proposed new law to improve it.

The law has aroused further controversy, given that in its passing through the chambers of the legislature, the mandatory 7 day period between debate and assent of the new legislation was ignored. The view among the part of the opposition that opposed the bill is that Kirchner’s government tried to rush the law through parliament before December 2009, when the government could have lost its absolute majorities in Congress.

Dr. Lauro Laíño, the president of ADEPA (media owners), in a speech given on the 24 September 2009, opposed the proposed law, and added that in Latin America, especially in Venezuela and Argentina, “press freedom was being undermined under the suspicious pretext of plurality” Others, notably press freedom advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontières, have expressed some support for the measure, citing the need to repeal the Radio Broadcast Law of 1980 enacted by the National Reorganization Process, Argentina's last military government.

The acrimony between Cristina Kirchner's government and the national media was exacerbated by a series of lock-ins carried out by the truck drivers' union led by Pablo Moyano, son of Hugo Moyano, a close ally of the Kirchner government. During the lock in, the country's most widely circulated newspapers (''Clarín'' and ''La Nación'') were prevented by force and threats of violence from distributing papers to newsstands. On 7 November 2009, the Association of Newspaper Editors of Buenos Aires (AEDBA) issued a statement in which it claimed that the truck drivers' unions' actions had been the fiercest attack on the free circulation of newspapers the country had seen since its return to democratic rule in 1983.

On 2010 the Supreme Court of Argentina ruled that the judicial movement made by an opposition deputy who tried to suspend the new Media Law, which was approved by the National Congress, was illegal.

Public image

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 2009 she rose to eleventh, but in 2010 she fell to sixty-eighth. In 2010, she was ranked by the magazine ''Time'' as second in the list of the Top 10 Female Leaders of the World.

Her public image decreased during the conflict with the agricultural sector, leading to a defeat of the party in 2009. The Death and state funeral of Néstor Kirchner increased her public image again.

Her speeches work with appeals to emotion, both at the beginning and the end. She makes frequent appeals to pity by mentions to the death of her husband and her own pain about it. The achivements of both Néstor's administration and her own are treated with hyperbole and compared with the 2001 economic crisis.

Style

Cristina is known for being passionate about clothes. According to The Times, "Cristina has deployed her glamour and sexuality as potent weapons on her way to a goal that not even the legendary Eva Peron was able to achieve.". She likes the mixture of textures, colors and prints, and has some favorite designers from Argentina. She always wears makeup and high heels.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is often criticized by observers - in both the media and the world of politics - for her excessive spending on clothes, jewelry and shoes. She rarely wears the same attire twice and in many cases, has been criticized for arriving late to meetings with international leaders, because she was getting dressed.

Since Néstor's death, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has decided to wear only black attire. So far, she has worn more than 200 different black outfits, including tailleurs, suits, pants, evening dresses and jackets.

Bibliography

References

External links

Cristina Fernandez on Honduras Coup Office of the President Official site of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Senate of the Argentine Republic website Extensive biography by CIDOB Foundation

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Category:Presidents of Argentina Category:Current national leaders Category:Members of the Argentine Senate Category:Members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies Category:Justicialist Party politicians Category:Argentine lawyers Category:People from La Plata Category:Argentine Roman Catholics Category:University of La Plata alumni Category:Female heads of government Category:Female heads of state Category:Argentine women in politics Category:Spouses of the Presidents of Argentina Category:Néstor Kirchner Category:1953 births Category:Living people

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order	44th
office	President of the United States
term start	January 20, 2009
vicepresident	Joe Biden
predecessor	George W. Bush
birth date	August 04, 1961
birth place	Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
birthname	Barack Hussein Obama II
nationality	American
party	Democratic
spouse	Michelle Obama (m. 1992)
children	Malia (b.1998) Sasha (b.2001)
residence	The White House
alma mater	Occidental CollegeColumbia University (B.A.)Harvard Law School (J.D.)
profession	Community organizerAttorneyAuthorConstitutional law professorUnited States SenatorPresident of the United States
religion	Christian, former member of United Church of Christ
signature	Barack Obama signature.svg
website	WhiteHouse.gov
footnotes	}}

The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009, when he became the 44th President of the United States. Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama is the first African-American president of the United States, as well as the first born in Hawaii.

His policy decisions have addressed a global financial crisis and have included changes in tax policies, legislation to reform the United States health care industry, foreign policy initiatives and the phasing out of detention of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He attended the G-20 London summit and later visited U.S. troops in Iraq. On the tour of various European countries following the G-20 summit, he announced in Prague that he intended to negotiate substantial reduction in the world's nuclear arsenals, en route to their eventual extinction. In October 2009, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Transition period

The presidential transition period began following Obama's election to the presidency on November 4, 2008. The Obama-Biden Transition Project was co-chaired by John Podesta, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse. During the transition period, Obama announced his nominations for his Cabinet and administration. Shortly after the election on November 4, Obama chose Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois as White House Chief of Staff.

Cabinet nominations included former Democratic primary opponents Hillary Rodham Clinton for Secretary of State and Bill Richardson for Secretary of Commerce (although the latter withdrew on January 4, 2009). Obama appointed Eric Holder as his Attorney General, the first African-American appointed to that position. He also nominated Timothy F. Geithner to serve as Secretary of the Treasury. On December 1, Obama announced that he had asked Robert Gates to remain as Secretary of Defense, making Gates the first Defense head to carry over from a president of a different party. He nominated former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, which he restored to a Cabinet-level position.

During his transition, he maintained a website Change.gov, on which he wrote blogs to readers and uploaded video addresses by many of the members of his new cabinet. He announced strict rules for federal lobbyists, restricting them from financially contributing to his administration and forcing them to stop lobbying while working for him. The website also allowed individuals to share stories and visions with each other and the transition team in what was called the Citizen's Briefing Book, which was given to Obama shortly after his inauguration. Most of the information from Change.gov was transferred to the official White House website whitehouse.gov just after Obama's inauguration.

Inauguration

Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. He officially assumed the presidency at 12:00 noon, EST, and completed the oath of office at 12:05 PM, EST. He delivered his inaugural address immediately following his oath. After his speech, he went to the President's Room in the House Wing of the Capitol and signed three documents: a commemorative proclamation, a list of Cabinet appointments, and a list of sub-Cabinet appointments, before attending a luncheon with congressional and administration leaders and invited guests. To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of former President Abraham Lincoln, the same Bible that was used for Lincoln's inauguration was used in Obama's inauguration.

In administering the oath, Chief Justice John G. Roberts misplaced the word "faithfully" and erroneously replaced the phrase "President of the United States" with "President to the United States" before restating the phrase correctly; since Obama initially repeated the incorrect form, some scholars argued the President should take the oath again. On January 21, Roberts readministered the oath to Obama in a private ceremony in the White House Map Room, making him the seventh U.S. president to retake the oath; White House Counsel Greg Craig said Obama took the oath from Roberts a second time out of an "abundance of caution".

First 100 days

Expectations

Obama's 100th day in office was April 29, 2009. In his first post-election interview with ''60 Minutes'', Obama said that he has been studying Franklin Roosevelt's first 100 days, while adding, "The first hundred days is going to be important, but it's probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference."

Obama's first 100 days were highly anticipated ever since he became the presumptive nominee. Several news outlets created web pages dedicated to covering the subject. Commentators weighed in on challenges and priorities within domestic, foreign, economic, and environmental policy. CNN lists a number of economic issues that "Obama and his team will have to tackle in their first 100 days", foremost among which is passing and implementing a recovery package to deal with the financial crisis. Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights lawyer, expressed hopes that the new president will close Guantanamo Bay detention camp in his first 100 days in office. After aides of the president announced his intention to give a major foreign policy speech in the capital of an Islamic country, there were speculations in Jakarta that he might return to his former home city within the first 100 days.

''The New York Times'' devoted a five-part series, which was spread out over two weeks, to anticipatory analysis of Obama's first hundred days. Each day, the analysis of a political expert was followed by freely edited blog postings from readers. The writers compared Obama's prospects with the situations of Franklin D. Roosevelt (January 16, Jean Edward Smith), John F. Kennedy (January 19, Richard Reeves), Lyndon B. Johnson (January 23, Robert Dallek), Ronald Reagan (January 27, Lou Cannon), and Richard Nixon.

Legislation and executive orders

Within minutes of taking the Oath of Office on January 20, Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, issued an order suspending last-minute federal regulations pushed through by outgoing President George W. Bush, planning to review everything still pending. Due to the economic crisis, the President enacted a pay freeze for Senior White House Staff making more than $100,000 per year, as well as announcing stricter guidelines regarding lobbyists in an effort to raise the ethical standards of the White House. He asked for a waiver to his own new rules, however, for the appointments of William Lynn to the position of Deputy Defense Secretary, Jocelyn Frye to the position of director of policy and projects in the Office of the First Lady, and Cecilia Muñoz to the position of director of intergovernmental affairs in the executive office of the president, leading to some criticism of hypocrisy and violation of his pledge for governmental openness.

In his first week in office, Obama signed Executive Order 13492 suspending all the ongoing proceedings of Guantanamo military commission and ordering the detention facility to be shut down within the year. He also signed Executive Order 13491 - Ensuring Lawful Interrogations requiring the Army Field Manual to be used as a guide for terror interrogations, banning torture and other coercive techniques, such as waterboarding. Obama also issued an executive order entitled "Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel", setting stricter limitations on incoming executive branch employees and placing tighter restrictions on lobbying in the White House. Obama signed two Presidential Memoranda concerning energy independence, ordering the Department of Transportation to establish higher fuel efficiency standards before 2011 models are released and allowing states to raise their emissions standards above the national standard. He also ended the Mexico City Policy, which banned federal grants to international groups that provide abortion services or counseling.

In his first week he also established a policy of producing a weekly Saturday morning video address available on whitehouse.gov and YouTube, much like those released during his transition period. The first address had been viewed by 600,000 YouTube viewers by the next afternoon.

The first piece of legislation Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 on January 29, which revised the statute of limitations for filing pay discrimination lawsuits. Lilly Ledbetter joined Obama and his wife, Michelle, as he signed the bill, fulfilling his campaign pledge to nullify ''Ledbetter v. Goodyear''. On February 3, he signed the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIP), expanding health care from 7 million children under the plan to 11 million.

| format = Ogg | type = speech }} After much debate, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was passed by both the House and Senate on February 13, 2009. Originally intended to be a bipartisan bill, the passage of the bill was largely along party lines. No Republicans voted for it in the House, and three moderate Republicans voted for it in the Senate (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania). The bill combined tax breaks with spending on infrastructure projects, extension of welfare benefits, and education. The final cost of the bill was $787 billion, and almost $1.2 trillion with debt service included. Obama signed the Act into law on February 17, 2009, in Denver, Colorado.

On March 9, 2009, Obama lifted restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and in doing so, called into question some of George W. Bush's signing statements. Obama stated that he too would employ signing statements if he deems upon review that a portion of a bill is unconstitutional, and he has issued several signing statements.

Early in his presidency, Obama signed a law raising the tobacco tax 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes. The tax is to be "used to finance a major expansion of health insurance for children", and "help some [smokers] to quit and persuade young people not to start".

In October 2011, Obama instituted the We Can't Wait program, which involved using executive orders, administrative rulemaking, and recess appointments to institute policies without the support of Congress. The initiative was developed in response to Congress's unwillingness to pass economic legislation proposed by Obama, and conflicts in Congress during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis.

Approval ratings and opinion

2009

After his transition period, Obama entered office with an approval rating of 82%. At the end of his first week, 68% of respondents in a Gallup poll approved of how Obama was handling his job, matching the early approval ratings of Dwight D. Eisenhower and trailing only John F. Kennedy in post-World War II presidents.

Throughout early February polls showed scattered approval ratings: 62% (CBS News), 64% (USA Today/Gallup), 66% (Gallup), and 76% in an outlier poll (CNN/Opinion Research). Gallup reported the congressional address in late February boosted his approval from a term-low of 59% to 67%.

Throughout autumn 2009, Rasmussen estimated Obama's approval as fluctuating between 45% and 52% and his disapproval between 48% and 54%; as of November 11, Pew Research estimated Obama's approval between 51% and 55% and his disapproval between 33% and 37% since July.

Handling of the economy

Rasmussen reported in mid-February 2009, that 55% of voters gave Obama good or excellent marks on his handling of the economy. In early March, a ''The Wall Street Journal'' survey of 49 economists gave Obama an average grade of 59 out of 100, with 42% of the respondents surveyed giving the administration's economic policies a grade below 60 percent. In comparison, only 30% of those same economists considered the response of governments around the world to the global recession to have been adequate. In April, a Gallup poll showed trust in Obama's economic policy with 71% saying they had "a fair amount" or "a great deal" of confidence in Obama's handling of the economy, higher than for Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, or leaders of Congress. Another Gallup poll in June showed 55% of Americans approved Obama's overall handling of the economy, but 48% and 51% disapproved of his handling of the federal budget deficit and controlling federal spending, respectively. A CBS News poll taken August 27–31 showed 53% of those polled approved of his handling of the economy. A Rasmussen poll taken on November 12 found 45% of Americans rating Obama's handling of the economy as poor and 39% rating him as doing a good or excellent job. They found 72% of Democrats rated his handling of the economy as good or excellent, while only 10% of Republicans and 27% of voters not affiliated with either party agreed.

2010

On March 25, 2010, following his signing of landmark health care reform legislation into law, Obama's polling was revealed by Bloomberg to be 50%, with higher marks for relations with other countries (58%) and his running of the war in Afghanistan (54%). "Obama's approval rating is roughly equal to what Bill Clinton had at this point in his presidency, according to data maintained by Gallup (and) higher than the 45 percent Ronald Reagan recorded in April 1982" and more favorable than Democrats or Republicans office in 2010. They found Obama's approval rating was at 85% among Democrats, compared with 46% among independents and 11% among Republicans.

Fox News released the results of two polls on April 8–9, 2010. The first showed a drop in Obama's approval rating to 43%, with 48% disapproving. In that poll, Democrats approved of Obama's performance 80–12%, while independents disapproved 49–38%. The other poll, which concentrated on the economy, showed disapproval of Obama's handling of the economy by a 53–42% margin, with 62% saying they were dissatisfied with the handling of the federal deficit. According to a Gallup Poll released April 10, 2010, President Obama had a 45% approval rating, with 48% disapproving. In a poll from Rasmussen Reports, released April 10, 2010, 47% approved of the President's performance, while 53% disapproved.

2011

Obama's approval rating jumped to a high following the death of Osama Bin Laden on May 2, 2011. A GfK poll conducted May 5, 2011 found his approval rating to be 60%. During the debt ceiling debate in August 2011, Obama's approval rating dropped to the low-40s.

Major legislation

2009

January 29: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

February 4: Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act

February 11: DTV Delay Act

February 17: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

March 30: Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009

April 21: Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act

May 20: Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act

May 20: Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009

May 22: Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009

June 22: Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

August 6: Cash For Clunkers Extension Act

October 22: Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act

October 28: Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

October 28: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010

October 30: Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act

November 6: Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009

2010

January 27: Emergency Aid to American Survivors of Haiti Earthquake Act

March 4: Travel Promotion Act

March 18: Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (HIRE Act)

March 23: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

March 30: Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

May 5: Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010

May 17: Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act

July 1: Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act

July 21: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

July 22: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010

July 22: Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010

August 10: SPEECH Act of 2010

September 27: Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010

December 9: Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010

December 13: Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010

December 17: Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010

December 22: Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010

2011

January 2: James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 () January 4: Food Safety and Modernization Act, ,

January 7: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011

August 2: Budget Control Act of 2011

December 31: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Personnel

Cabinet appointees

Twenty-two members of the Obama administration are either in the United States Cabinet (15) or are in positions considered to be Cabinet-level (7). The members of the Cabinet are the heads of the fifteen major departments (State, Defense, Justice, etc.), and the seven cabinet-level positions are the Vice President, White House Chief of Staff, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador to the United Nations, and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Since Robert Gates was a member of the previous administration, his letter of resignation (a formality at the end of a President's term) was simply not accepted, and he did not need confirmation. On January 19, 2009, Senate Democratic leaders requested fifteen of the twenty positions to be ratified by unanimous consent, and seven gained unanimous confirmation by voice vote the next day: Ken Salazar, Steven Chu, Arne Duncan, Peter Orszag, Eric Shinseki, Tom Vilsack, and Janet Napolitano. On January 21, Obama presided over the swearing in of the seven unanimous nominees. Later that day, the Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton by a 94–2 vote. On January 22, several more confirmations were approved unanimously: Susan E. Rice, Ray LaHood, Lisa P. Jackson, and Shaun Donovan. On January 26, the Senate confirmed Geithner by a 60–34 margin.

At the conclusion of Obama's first week as President, Hilda Solis, Tom Daschle, Ron Kirk, and Eric Holder had yet to be confirmed, and there had been no second appointment for Secretary of Commerce. Holder was confirmed by a vote of 75–21 on February 2, and on February 3, Obama announced Senator Judd Gregg as his second nomination for Secretary of Commerce. Daschle withdrew later that day amid controversy over his failure to pay income taxes and potential conflicts of interest related to the speaking fees he accepted from health care interests. Solis was later confirmed by a vote of 80-17 on February 24, and Ron Kirk was confirmed on March 18 by a 92-5 vote in the Senate.

Gregg, who was the leading Republican negotiator and author of the TARP program in the Senate, after publication that he had a multi-million dollar investment in the Bank of America, on February 12, withdrew his nomination as Secretary of Commerce, citing "irresolvable conflicts" with President Obama and his staff over how to conduct the 2010 census and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Former Washington governor Gary Locke was nominated on February 26 as Obama's third choice for Commerce Secretary and confirmed on March 24 by voice vote.

On March 2, Obama introduced Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius as his second choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He also introduced Nancy-Ann DeParle as head of the new White House Office of Health Reform, which he suggested would work closely with the Department of Health and Human Services. At the end of March, Sebelius was the only remaining Cabinet member yet to be confirmed.

Six high-ranking cabinet nominees in the Obama administration had their confirmations delayed or rejected among reports that they did not pay all of their taxes, including Tom Daschle, Obama's original nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Though Geithner was confirmed, and Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, thought Daschle would have been confirmed, Daschle withdrew his nomination on February 3. Obama had nominated Nancy Killefer for the position of Chief Performance Officer, but Killefer also withdrew on February 3, citing unspecified problems with District of Columbia unemployment tax. A senior administration official said that Killefer's tax issues dealt with household help. Hilda Solis, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Labor, faced delayed confirmation hearings due to tax lien concerns pertaining to her husband's auto repair business, but she was later confirmed on February 24. While pundits puzzled over U.S. Trade Representative-designate Ron Kirk's failure to be confirmed by March 2009, it was reported on March 2 that Kirk owed over $10,000 in back taxes. Kirk agreed to pay them in exchange for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus's aid in speeding up the confirmation process; he was later confirmed on March 18. On March 31, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, revealed in a letter to the Senate Finance Committee that her Certified Public Accountant found errors in her tax returns for years 2005-2007. She, along with her husband, paid more than $7,000 in back taxes, along with $878 in interest.

Notable non-Cabinet positions

Appointees serve at the pleasure of the President and were nominated by Barack Obama except as noted.

Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

*Sheila Bair¹ (2009–2011)

Special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

*Richard Holbrooke (2009–2010)

*Marc Grossman (2011–present)

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

* Retired General James L. Jones (2009–2011)

* Thomas E. Donilon (2011–present)

Special envoy to the Middle East

* George J. Mitchell (2009–2011)

* David Hale (2011–present)

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

* Robert Mueller² (2009–present)

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

* Leon Panetta (2009–2011)

* Michael Morell (Acting-2011)

* David Petraeus (2011–present)

Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers

* Christina Romer (2009–2010)

* Austan Goolsbee (2010–2011)

* Alan Krueger (2011–present)

Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission

* Mary Schapiro (2009–present)

Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of National Economic Council

* Lawrence Summers (2009–2010)

* Gene Sperling (2011–present)

Chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board

* Paul Volcker (2009–2011)

* ''Replaced by Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in 2011''

Chairperson of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness

* Jeffrey R. Immelt (2011–present)

¹Appointed by George W. Bush in 2006 to a five-year term ²Appointed by George W. Bush in 2001 to a ten-year term

Judicial nominees

United States Supreme Court

Obama appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: Sonia Sotomayor 2009 Elena Kagan 2010

Other courts

Outside of the Supreme Court, by October 2009, Obama had nominated fewer than two dozen judges to fill judicial vacancies, of which there were close to 100. This has prompted some Democrats to criticize the pace of Obama's judicial appointments as too slow. In December 2009, Senator Patrick Leahy criticized Republicans for stalling those judicial nominations that had been made, noting that the Senate confirmed more district and circuit court nominees during the first year of the George W. Bush administration than it had approved by that point during the Barack Obama presidency.

As of July 2010, Obama's nominees to the district and circuit courts had been confirmed at a rate of only 43.5 percent, compared to 87.2 percent during Bill Clinton's administration and 91.3 percent for George W. Bush. The Center for American Progress, which compiled the data, commented:

Judicial confirmations slowed to a trickle on the day President Barack Obama took office. Filibusters, anonymous holds, and other obstructionary tactics have become the rule. Uncontroversial nominees wait months for a floor vote, and even district court nominees—low-ranking judges whose confirmations have never been controversial in the past—are routinely filibustered into oblivion. Nominations grind to a halt in many cases even after the Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously endorsed a nominee.

Policies

Economy

Upon entering office, Obama planned to center his attention on handling the global financial crisis. Even before his inauguration he lobbied Congress to pass an economic stimulus bill, which became the top priority during his first month in office. As President, Obama made a high profile trip to Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. to dialog with Congressional Republicans and advocate for the bill. On February 17, 2009, Obama signed into law a $787 billion plan that included spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals. The tax provisions of the law reduced taxes for 98 per cent of taxpayers, bringing tax rates to their lowest levels in 60 years.

As part of the 2010 budget proposal, the Obama administration has proposed additional measures to attempt to stabilize the economy, including a $2–3 trillion measure aimed at stabilizing the financial system and freeing up credit. The program includes up to $1 trillion to buy toxic bank assets, an additional $1 trillion to expand a federal consumer loan program, and the $350 billion left in the Troubled Assets Relief Program. The plan also includes $50 billion intended to slow the wave of mortgage foreclosures. The 2011 budget includes a three-year freeze on discretionary spending, proposes several program cancellations, and raises taxes on high income earners to bring down deficits during the economic recovery.

In a July 2009 interview with ABC News, Biden was asked about the sustained increase of the U.S. unemployment rate from May 2007 to October 2009 despite the administration's multi-year economic stimulus package passed five months earlier. He responded "The truth is, we and everyone else, misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there ... the truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited." The White House indicates that 2 million jobs were created or saved due to the stimulus package in 2009 and self reporting by recipients of the grants, loans, and contracts portion of the package report that the package saved or created 608,317 jobs in the final three months of 2009.

The unemployment rate rose in 2009, reaching a peak in October at 10.1% and averaging 10.0% in the fourth quarter. Following a decrease to 9.7% in the first quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate fell to 9.6% in the second quarter, where it remained for the rest of the year. Between February and December 2010, employment rose by 0.8%, which was less than the average of 1.9% experienced during comparable periods in the past four employment recoveries. GDP growth returned in the third quarter of 2009, expanding at a 1.6% pace, followed by a 5.0% increase in the fourth quarter. Growth continued in 2010, posting an increase of 3.7% in the first quarter, with lesser gains throughout the rest of the year. Overall, the economy expanded at a rate of 2.9% in 2010.

During November–December 2010, Obama and a lame duck session of the 111th Congress focused on a dispute about the temporary Bush tax cuts, which were due to expire at the end of the year. Obama wanted to extend the tax cuts for taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. Congressional Republicans agreed but also wanted to extend the tax cuts for those making over that amount, and refused to support any bill that did not do so. All the Republicans in the Senate also joined in saying that, until the tax dispute was resolved, they would filibuster to prevent consideration of any other legislation, except for bills to fund the U.S. government. On 7 December, Obama strongly defended a compromise agreement he had reached with the Republican congressional leadership that included a two-year extension of all the tax cuts, a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance, a one-year reduction in the FICA payroll tax, and other measures. On December 10, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) led a filibuster against the compromise tax proposal, which lasted over eight hours. Obama persuaded many wary Democrats to support the bill, but not all; of the 148 votes against the bill in the House, 112 were cast by Democrats and only 36 by Republicans. The $858 billion Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which ''The Washington Post'' called "the most significant tax bill in nearly a decade", passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress and was signed into law by Obama on December 17, 2010.

Ethics

Lobbying reform

Early in his presidential campaign, Obama stated that "they [lobbyists] won't find a job in my White House", but softened his stance later in the campaign. On January 21, 2009, Obama issued an executive order for all future appointees to his administration, which stated, no appointee who was a registered lobbyist within the two years before his appointment could participate on matters in which he lobbied for a period of two years after the date of appointment. Three formal waivers were initially issued in early 2009, out of 800 executive appointments: to William J. Lynn III, a lobbyist for Raytheon, to hold the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense; to Jocelyn Frye, former general counsel at the National Partnership for Women and Families, to serve as Director of Policy and Projects in the Office of the First Lady; and to Cecilia Muñoz, former senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, to serve as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Executive Office of the President. As of March 21, 2009, at least thirty officials appointed by Obama had been lobbyists in the past five years. Ten additional waivers were announced in September 2009.

Not all recent former lobbyists require waivers; those without waivers write letters of recusal stating issues from which they must refrain because of their previous jobs. ''USA Today'' reported that 21 members of the Obama administration have at some time been registered as federal lobbyists, although most have not within the previous two years. Lobbyists in the administration include William Corr, an anti-tobacco lobbyist, as Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and Tom Vilsack, who lobbied in 2007, for a national teachers union, as Secretary of Agriculture. Also, the Secretary of Labor nominee, Hilda Solis, formerly served as a board member of American Rights at Work, which lobbied Congress on two bills Solis co-sponsored, and Mark Patterson, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's chief of staff, is a former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have criticized the administration, claiming that Obama is retreating from his own ethics rules barring lobbyists from working on the issues about which they lobbied during the previous two years by issuing waivers. According to Melanie Sloan, the group's executive director, "It makes it appear that they are saying one thing and doing another."

Transparency

The Obama administration has said that all executive orders, non-emergency legislation, and proclamations will be posted to the official White House website, whitehouse.gov, allowing the public to review and comment for five days before the President signs the legislation. The pledge was twice broken during Obama's first month in office when he signed SCHIP legislation and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act with less than the full five days of "sunlight before signing". The administration has said that they are still "working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar".

During his first week in office, Obama announced plans to post a video address each week on the site, and on YouTube, informing the public of government actions each week. During his speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Obama stated, "I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy."

On January 21, 2009, by executive order, Obama revoked Executive Order 13233, which had limited access to the records of former United States Presidents. Obama issued instructions to all agencies and departments in his administration to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act requests. In April 2009, the United States Department of Justice released four legal memos from the Bush administration to comply voluntarily with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The memos were written by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, then Principal Assistant Attorneys General to the Department of Justice, and addressed to John A. Rizzo, general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency. The memos describe in detail controversial interrogation methods the CIA used on prisoners suspected of terrorism. Obama became personally involved in the decision to release the memos, which was opposed by former CIA directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch. Former Vice President Dick Cheney criticized Obama for not releasing more memos; Cheney claimed that unreleased memos detail successes of CIA interrogations.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act requires all recipients of the funds provided by the act to publish a plan for using the funds, along with purpose, cost, rationale, net job creation, and contact information about the plan to a website Recovery.gov so that the public can review and comment. Inspectors General from each department or executive agency will then review, as appropriate, any concerns raised by the public. Any findings of an Inspector General must be relayed immediately to the head of each department and published on Recovery.gov.

On June 16, 2009, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration in order to get information about the visits of coal company executives. Anne Weismann, the chief counsel for CREW, stated "The Obama administration has now taken exactly the same position as the Bush administration... I don't see how you can keep people from knowing who visits the White House and adhere to a policy of openness and transparency." On June 16, MSNBC reported that its more comprehensive request for visitor logs since Obama's January 20 inauguration had been denied. The administration announced that White House visitor logs will be made available to the public on an ongoing basis, with certain limitations, for visits occurring after September 15, 2009. Beginning on January 29, 2010, the White House did begin to release the names of its visitor records. Since that time, names of visitors (which includes not only tourists, but also names of union leaders, Wall Street executives, lobbyists, party chairs, philanthropists and celebrities), have been released. The names are released in huge batches up to 75,000 names at a time. Names are released 90–120 days after having visited the White House. The complete list of names is available online by accessing the official White House website.

Obama stated during the 2008 Presidential campaign that he would have negotiations for health care reform televised on C-SPAN, citing transparency as being the leverage needed to ensure that people stay involved in the process taking place in Washington. This did not fully happen and Politifact gives President Obama a "Promise Broken" rating on this issue. After White House press secretary Robert Gibbs initially avoided addressing the issue, President Obama himself acknowledged that he met with Democratic leaders behind closed doors to discuss how best to garner enough votes in order to merge the two (House and Senate) passed versions of the health care bill. Doing this violated the letter of the pledge, although Obama maintains that negotiations in several congressional committees were open, televised hearings. Obama also cited an independent ethics watchdog group describe his administration as the most transparent in recent history.

The Obama administration has been characterized as much more aggressive than the Bush and other previous administrations in their response to whistleblowing and leaks to the press. Three people have been prosecuted under the rarely used Espionage Act of 1917. They include Thomas Andrews Drake, a former National Security Agency (NSA) employee who was critical of the NSA's Trailblazer Project, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor who allegedly had a conversation about North Korea with James Rosen of Fox News, and Jeffrey Sterling, who allegedly was a source for James Risen's book State of War. Risen has also been subpoenaed to reveal his sources, another rare action by the government.

Foreign policy

In his inaugural address, Obama suggested that he plans to begin the process of withdrawing from Iraq and continuing to focus on the war in Afghanistan. He also mentioned lessening the nuclear threat through "working tirelessly with old friends and former foes". He spoke about America's determination to combat terrorism, proclaiming America's spirit is "stronger and cannot be broken — you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." To the Muslim world, Obama extended an invite to "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect". He also said the USA would "extend a hand" to those "who cling to power through corruption and deceit" if they "are willing to unclench" their fists. Shortly after his inauguration President Obama first called President Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Calls were also made to President Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Olmert of Israel and King Abdullah of Jordan. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named George Mitchell as Special Envoy for Middle East peace and Richard Holbrooke as special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan on January 23, 2009. At the same time, Obama called on Israel to open the borders of Gaza, detailing early plans on his administration's peace plans for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. On February 18, 2009, Obama announced that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would be bolstered by 17,000 new troops by summer. The announcement followed the recommendation of several experts including Defense Secretary Robert Gates that additional troops be deployed to the war-torn nation.

Obama declared his plan for ending the Iraq War on February 27, 2009, in a speech at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, before an audience of Marines stationed there. According to the president, combat troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by August 2010, leaving a contingent of up to 50,000 servicemen and servicewomen to continue training, advisory, and counterterrorism operations until as late as the end of 2011.

Other characteristics of the Obama administration on foreign policy include a tough stance on tax havens, continuing military operation in Pakistan, and avowed focus on diplomacy to prevent nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea.

On April 1, 2009, Obama and China's President, Hu Jintao, announced the establishment of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue and agreed to work together to build a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century.

In that same month, Obama requested that Congress approve $83.4 billion of supplemental military funding, mostly for the war in Iraq and to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. The request also includes $2.2 billion to increase the size of the US military, $350 million to upgrade security along the US-Mexico border, and $400 million in counterinsurgency aid for Pakistan.

In May 2009, it was reported that Obama plans to expand the military by 20,000 employees.

On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University in Egypt. The wide ranging speech called for a "new beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States. The speech received both praise and criticism from leaders in the region. In March 2010, Secretary of State Clinton criticized the Israeli government for approving expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem.

On April 8, 2010, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the latest Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), a "major" nuclear arms control agreement that reduces the nuclear weapons stockpiles of both countries.

In March 2011, international reaction to Muammar Gaddafi's military crackdown on rebel forces and civilians in Libya culminated in a United Nations resolution to enforce a no fly zone in Libya. Obama authorized U.S. forces to participate in international air attacks on Libyan air defenses using Tomahawk cruise missiles to establish the protective zone.

Guantánamo Bay detention camp

On his first day in office, Obama requested a 120-day suspension of all trials for alleged terrorists held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, so the new administration could "review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases pending before military commissions , specifically". Another order established a task force to lead a review of detention policies, procedures and individual cases. Obama addressed the State Department that "the United States will not torture" and drafted an executive order to close Guantánamo within a year. On January 22, 2009, Obama signed an executive order ensuring safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals detained in armed conflicts. This order restricts interrogators to methods listed and authorized by an Army Field Manual. A detainee released since Obama took office claimed in an interview with Agence France-Presse that conditions at Guantánamo had worsened, stating guards wanted to "take their last revenge" before the facility is closed. On March 13, 2009, the administration announced that it would no longer refer to prisoners at Guantánamo Bay as enemy combatants, but it also asserted that the president has the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges.

The case review of detainee files by administration officials and prosecutors was made more difficult than expected as the Bush administration had failed to establish a coherent repository of the evidence and intelligence on each prisoner. By September 2009, prosecutors recommended to the Justice Department which detainees are eligible for trial, and the Justice Department and the Pentagon worked together to determine which of several now-scheduled trials will go forward in military tribunals and which in civilian courts. While 216 international terrorists are already held in maximum security prisons in the U.S., Congress was denying the administration funds to shut down the camp and adapt existing facilities elsewhere, arguing that the decision was "too dangerous to rush". In November, Obama stated that the U.S. would miss the January 2010 date for closing the Guantánamo Bay prison as he had ordered, acknowledging that he "knew this was going to be hard". Obama did not set a specific new deadline for closing the camp, citing that the delay was due to politics and lack of congressional cooperation. The state of Illinois has offered to sell to the federal government the Thomson Correctional Center, a new but largely unused prison, for the purpose of housing detainees. Federal officials testified at a December 23 hearing that if the state commission approves the sale for that purpose, it could take more than six months to ready the facility.

Killing of Osama bin Laden

Starting with information received in July 2010, intelligence developed by the CIA over the next several months determined what they believed to be the location of Osama bin Laden in a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a suburban area 35 miles from Islamabad. CIA head Leon Panetta reported this intelligence to Obama in March 2011. Meeting with his national security advisers over the course of the next six weeks, Obama rejected a plan to bomb the compound, and authorized a "surgical raid" to be conducted by United States Navy SEALs. The operation took place on May 1, 2011, resulting in the death of bin Laden and the seizure of papers and computer drives and disks from the compound. Bin Laden's body was identified through DNA testing, and buried at sea several hours later. Within minutes of Obama's announcement from Washington, DC, late in the evening on May 1, there were spontaneous celebrations around the country as crowds gathered outside the White House, and at New York City's Ground Zero and Times Square. Reaction to the announcement was positive across party lines, including from predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and from many countries around the world.

Overseas Contingency Operation

Obama discontinued use of the term "War on Terror" and instead uses the term "Overseas Contingency Operation". However, Obama has stated that the U.S. is at war with Al-Qaeda, saying "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred."

In April 2010, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them.

Gun control

During the presidential campaign, Obama announced that he favors measures that respect Second Amendment rights, while at the same time keeping guns away from children and criminals. On February 25, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration would seek a new assault weapons ban across the United States, saying that it would have a positive impact on the drug-related violence in Mexico. After the statement drew criticism from the NRA and some House Democrats, the Administration reportedly ordered the Justice Department to end public discussion of the issue. Obama has signed into law two bills containing amendments reducing restrictions on gun owners, one which permits guns to be transported in checked baggage on Amtrak trains and another which allows carrying loaded firearms in national parks located in states allowing concealed carry.

Science and technology

Cybersecurity

Obama initiated a 60-day review of cybersecurity by Melissa Hathaway, a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, appointed Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace.

''The New York Times'' reported in 2009, that the NSA is intercepting communications of American citizens including a Congressman, although the Justice Department believed that the NSA had corrected its errors. United States Attorney General Eric Holder resumed the wiretapping according to his understanding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 that Congress passed in July 2008, but without explaining what had occurred.

Environment

On January 27, 2009, Obama issued two presidential memoranda concerning energy policy. One directed the Department of Transportation to raise fuel efficiency standards incrementally to by 2020, and the other directed the Environmental Protection Agency to allow individual states to set stricter tailpipe emissions regulations than the federal standard.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides $54 billion in funds to double domestic renewable energy production, renovate federal buildings making them more energy-efficient, improve the nation's electricity grid, repair public housing, and weatherize modest-income homes.

On February 10, 2009, Obama overturned a Bush administration policy that had opened up a five-year period of offshore drilling for oil and gas near both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been quoted as saying, "To establish an orderly process that allows us to make wise decisions based on sound information, we need to set aside" the plan "and create our own timeline".

On May 19, 2009, Obama announced a plan to increase the CAFE national standards for gasoline mileage, by creating a single new national standard that will create a car and light truck fleet in the United States that is almost 40 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016, than it is today, with an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. Environmental advocates and industry officials welcomed the new program, but for different reasons. Environmentalists called it a long-overdue tightening of emissions and fuel economy standards after decades of government delay and industry opposition. Auto industry officials said it would provide the single national efficiency standard they have long desired, a reasonable timetable to meet it and the certainty they need to proceed with product development plans.

On March 30, 2010, Obama partially reinstated Bush administration proposals to open certain offshore areas along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. The proposals had earlier been set aside by President Obama after they were challenged in court on environmental grounds.

On May 27, 2010, Obama extended a moratorium on offshore drilling permits after the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill which is considered to be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Although BP took responsibility for the disaster and its ongoing after effects, Obama began a federal investigation along with forming a bipartisan commission to review the incident and methods to avoid it in the future. Obama visited the Gulf Coast on May 2 and May 28 and expressed his frustration on the June 8 ''NBC Today Show'', by saying "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick." Obama's response to the disaster has drawn confusion and criticism within segments of the media and public.

NASA

Obama set up the Augustine panel to review the Constellation program in 2009, and announced in February 2010, that he was cutting the program from the 2011 United States federal budget, describing it as "over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation." After the decision drew criticism in the United States, a new "Flexible path to Mars" plan was unveiled at a space conference in April 2010. It included new technology programs, increased R&D; spending, a focus on the International Space Station and contracting out flying crew to space to commercial providers. The new plan also increased NASA's 2011 budget to $19 billion from $18.3 billion in 2010.

In July 2009, Obama appointed Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, to be administrator of NASA.

Stem cell research

On March 9, 2009, Obama repealed a Bush-era policy that prevented federal tax dollars from being used to fund research on new lines of embryonic stem cells. Such research has been a matter of debate between those who emphasize the therapeutic potential of such research and those who suggest that elements of this research breach ethical limitations. Obama stated that "In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values...In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research — and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly."

Social policy

On January 23, 2009, Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy, a measure from the Reagan and Bush eras that required any non-governmental organization receiving U.S. Government funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services in other countries.

On June 17, 2009, Obama authorized the extension of some benefits (but not health insurance or pension benefits) to same-sex partners of federal employees. Obama has chosen to leave larger changes, such as the repeal of Don't ask, don't tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, to Congress.

On October 19, 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a directive to federal prosecutors in states with medical marijuana laws not to investigate or prosecute cases of marijuana use or production done in compliance with those laws.

On December 16, 2009, President Obama signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010, which repealed a 21-year-old ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs.

On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, a bill that provides for repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy of 1993, that has prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces. Repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" had been a key campaign promise that Obama had made during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Health care reform

Once the stimulus bill was enacted, health care reform became Obama's top domestic priority. On July 14, 2009, House Democratic leaders introduced a 1,000 page plan for overhauling the US health care system, which Obama wanted Congress to approve by the end of the year.

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the ten-year cost to the federal government of the major insurance-related provisions of the bill at approximately $1.0 trillion. In mid-July 2009, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the CBO, testified that the proposals under consideration would significantly increase federal spending and did not include the "fundamental changes" needed to control the rapid growth in health care spending. However after reviewing the final version of the bill introduced after 14 months of debate the CBO estimated that it would reduce federal budget deficits by $143 billion over 10 years and by more than a trillion in the next decade.

After much public debate during the Congressional summer recess of 2009, Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9 where he addressed concerns over his administration's proposals. In March 2010, Obama gave several speeches across the country to argue for the passage of health care reform. On March 21, 2010, after Obama announced an executive order reinforcing the current law against spending federal funds for elective abortion services, the House, by a vote of 219 to 212, passed the version of the bill previously passed on December 24, 2009, by a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. The bill, which includes over 200 Republican amendments, was passed without a single Republican vote. On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the bill into law. Immediately following the bill's passage, the House voted in favor of a reconciliation measure to make significant changes and corrections to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was passed by both houses with two minor alterations on March 25, 2010, and signed into law on March 30, 2010.

Education reform

On March 30, 2010, Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which ended the role of private banks in lending out federally-insured student loans. By directly lending to students, the government is projected to save taxpayers $68 billion dollars over the next several years. Federally-insured student loans will instead be distributed by the Department of Education. The law also increased the amount of Pell Grant awards given each year, doubling its current funding. Starting in 2014, the law permits borrowers to cap the amount they spend on student loans each year to ten percent of their discretionary income and have their balance forgiven if they have faithfully paid the balance of their loan over 20 years. Additionally, the law seeks to make it easier for parents to qualify for Grad PLUS loans, and spends billions on poor and minority schools and $2 billion for community colleges.

Gates arrest controversy

On July 16, 2009, prominent African American Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home by a local white police officer, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, for disorderly conduct. Gates, who was locked out of his house, had attempted to break into his own property, thus causing the initial alarm from a neighbor who called 9-1-1. The incident sparked national controversy over whether Gates's civil rights had been violated by Crowley. On July 21, the Cambridge Police Department dropped charges against Gates. On July 22, President Barack Obama, commented on the incident over national and international television, criticized the arrest, and stated the police acted "stupidly" in handling the incident. National law enforcement organizations and members objected to Obama's comments and criticized his handling of the issue. In the aftermath, Obama stated that he regretted his comments exacerbating the situation, and hoped that the situation could become a "teachable moment". To reduce tensions, on July 24, Obama invited both parties to the White House to discuss the issue over beers, and on July 30, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden joined Crowley and Gates in a private, cordial meeting in a courtyard near the White House Rose Garden; this became known colloquially as the "Beer Summit".

Wall Street reform

On July 21, 2010, Obama signed Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, considered to be the largest financial system overhaul since the New Deal. The law recognizes complex financial derivatives and makes rules to protect consumers from unfair practices in loans and credit cards by establishing a new consumer protection agency. At the signing ceremony in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington D.C. Obama proclaimed, "There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period." Obama also mentioned that "These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history." At the ceremony were Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the two committee chairmen who sponsored the bill.

2010 midterm elections

Due in large part to voter frustration over high unemployment and a stalled economy, Republicans won control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections. On reflection after the election, Obama blamed himself, in part, for the many Democrats who went down to defeat knowing that they had risked their careers to support his agenda of economic stimulus legislation and a landmark health care bill. Democrats narrowly retained the Senate majority and will continue to control it through the 112th Congress.

Obama called the elections "humbling" and a "shellacking". He said that the results came because not enough Americans had felt the effects of the economic recovery.

2012 re-election campaign

On April 4, 2011, President Obama announced that he would seek re-election in the 2012 presidential election. The campaign will be based in Chicago and is being run by many former members of the White House staff and members of the successful 2008 campaign.

References

External links

"Obama's People" (photography: Nadav Kander)

The Official White House YouTube page

"President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address". The White House.

"Wrapping Up Open for Questions". The White House.

"President Obama's State of the Union Address" C-SPAN.

Obama, Barack

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