Economic policy When she first took office, Fernández de Kirchner replaced the previous minister of economy,
Miguel Gustavo Peirano, who had been appointed by her husband as the former president. Peirano was succeeded by
Martín Lousteau in December 2007. He served as the first of several ministers of the economy under her presidency. The attempt to increase taxes on agricultural exports caused a
conflict with the agricultural sector, and
protests broke out. As a result, taxes were not increased, and Lousteau resigned by April 2008, only a few months after he had been appointed. He was replaced by Argentina's tax agency chief
Carlos Rafael Fernández. Fernández resigned after the Kirchnerist defeat in the 2009 elections, and was replaced by
Amado Boudou, president of the
ANSES, which had worked for that nationalization. Although inflation was nearing 25% and on the rise, Boudou did not consider it a significant problem. In January 2010, Fernández de Kirchner created the
bicentennial fund employing a
necessity and urgency decree in order to pay debt obligations with
foreign-exchange reserves.
Martín Redrado, president of the
Central Bank, refused to implement it, and was fired by another decree. Judge
María José Sarmiento annulled both decrees on the grounds that the Central Bank was independent. Redrado resigned one month later and was replaced by
Mercedes Marcó del Pont. In an attempt to combat poverty, the government introduced in 2009 the
Universal Child Allowance, a
cash transfer program to parents who are unemployed or in the
informal economy. It was later expanded to cover other disadvantaged groups. The extent to which Kirchner's policies have lowered poverty is controversial, with the government's reported poverty rate being questioned by some experts. Fernández de Kirchner was reelected in 2011, along with
Amado Boudou as vice president and the
Front for Victory regained control over both chambers of Congress.
Hernán Lorenzino became the new minister of economy. The government established
currency controls that limited the power to buy or sell foreign currencies, especially American dollars. Many Argentines kept their savings in dollars as a
hedge against inflation. The government believed the controls were required to prevent the
capital flight and tax evasion. They initiated a
period of fiscal reform, which included several tax increases, limits to wage increases, but increases in
protectionism and reorganization of state-owned enterprises.
Hugo Moyano, main
union leader, who was a strong supporter of kirchnerism, began to oppose the President. Moyano would later organize a big protest at
Plaza de Mayo, with 30,000 people, requesting the abolition of
capital gains tax.
Axel Kicillof was appointed minister in 2013 and served for the remainder of Fernández de Kirchner's term. He arranged payment of the debt to the
Paris Club, and the compensation requested by
Repsol for the
nationalization of YPF. One month later, negotiations with
hedge funds failed, and American judge
Thomas Griesa issued an order that Argentina had to pay to all creditors and not just those who had accepted a reduced payment as outlined in the
Argentine debt restructuring plan. Kicillof refused to agree that the country had fallen into a
sovereign default. When Argentina devalued the peso in January 2014, Kicillof placed blame on the
exchange-market speculation by
Juan José Aranguren, chief of
Royal Dutch Shell in Argentina; later in the year, when the peso was at its lowest ever position in relation to the dollar, he blamed "
vulture funds" from the United States. At the 2014
United Nations conference, she accused the "
vulture funds" of destabilizing the economy of the countries and called them "
economic terrorists". According to
The Economist, the Kirchners returned Argentina to "
economic nationalism and near-
autarky".
Energy policy . In 2002, Eduardo Duhalde
fixed the prices for public services such as electricity, gas and water supply. These remained fixed during the terms of Duhalde and Néstor, and Cristina Kirchner, despite the crisis that motivated them having ended. As the inflation rate grew during the period, the state financed part of these prices with
subsidies. Investment in these areas decreased, and the generation and distribution networks suffered. Argentina lost its self-supply of energy and had to import it, rather than being able to export surpluses. She proposed a
fiscal austerity program in early 2012, including the gradual removal of subsidies. The proposal turned out to be unpopular and was not implemented. She opted instead to send a bill to Congress for the
renationalization of YPF, privatized in 1993, blaming the Spanish company
Repsol for the energy trade deficit. The bill was approved by the Chamber of Deputies by a 207–32 margin. It was criticized as an authoritarian move, as there was no negotiation with Repsol. As well, the
Vaca Muerta oil field had been discovered by this time. However, YPF was unable to afford the costs to exploit the oil at the site, and the rights to drill at Vaca Muerta were sold to the
Chevron Corporation. The costs of energy imports increased the trade deficit and the inflation rate, and
power outages became frequent. Outages usually took place on the hottest days of the summer season, as the use of air conditioning increased electricity consumption to peak levels.
Conflict with the agricultural sector in Villa María, Córdoba In March 2008, Fernández de Kirchner introduced a new sliding-scale taxation system for agricultural exports, so that rates fluctuated with international prices. This would effectively raise levies on
soybean exports from 35% to 44% at the time of the announcement. This new taxation scheme, proposed by Minister
Martín Lousteau, led to a nationwide
lockout by farming associations, with the aim of forcing the government to back down on the new tax system. They were joined on 25 March by thousands of
pot-banging demonstrators massed around the
Buenos Aires Obelisk and the
presidential palace. These demonstrations were followed by others at locations across the country that included road
blockades and food shortages. The protests were highly polarizing. The government argued that the new taxes would allow for a better
redistribution of wealth and keep down the food prices. It also claimed the farmers were staging a
coup d'état against Fernández de Kirchner. After four months of conflict and having the majority in both houses of the
Argentine Congress, the president introduced the new taxation bill. However, many legislators gave priority to the local agendas of their provinces as their economies depended heavily on agriculture. Many FPV legislators, such as
Rubén Marín, opposed the bill. Marín argued: "For us, agriculture is the economy". There were two demonstrations the day of the vote: one against the bill, attended by 235,000 people, and the other in support of the bill, attended by 100,000 people.
Other protests '' against Fernández de Kirchner. Fernández de Kirchner was reelected in 2011. The Constitution of Argentina allows only one reelection. Many of her supporters proposed an amendment to the Constitution to allow indefinite reelections. She did not publicly support the proposal but did not discourage or reject it either. The proposal was not taken to the Congress, as the FPV still lacked the required
two-thirds majority to approve an amendment bill. It was rejected by many sectors of society. The first big demonstration (a
cacerolazo) took place in
September 2012. It was not called by specific politicians or social leaders, but by the public using
social networks. The massive turnout was completely unexpected by both the government and the opposition. Most of the Fernández de Kirchner loyalists, however, preferred simply to ignore the protest. A larger demonstration, the
8N, took place two months later. It was attended by nearly half a million people. They protested a variety of issues such as those of the previous demonstration, as well as the growing rate of inflation and the corruption scandals. She promised to keep her policies unchanged, and Senator
Aníbal Fernández dismissed the significance of the demonstrations. A similar view was held by Fernández de Kirchner's loyalists. A week later, Fernández de Kirchner announced a proposed amendment of the Argentine judiciary. Three bills were controversial: the first proposed to limit
injunctions against the state; the second would include people selected in national elections on the body that appoints or removes judges; the third would create a new court that would limit the number of cases heard by the Supreme Court. The opposition considered the bills an attempt to control the judiciary. The 2013 season of the investigative journalism programme
Periodismo para todos revealed an ongoing case of political corruption involving Néstor Kirchner, called "
The Route of the K-Money", which generated a huge political controversy. This led to a new
cacerolazo on 18 April, known as the
18A. Prosecutor
Alberto Nisman, who worked on the investigation of the 1994 Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association)
AMIA bombing, accused Fernández de Kirchner of engaging in a criminal, cover-up conspiracy to cover up the attack. He was found dead in his home the day before he was to explain his denunciation in Congress. Argentine law enforcement concluded that Nisman's death was a homicide. The unsolved case was highly controversial. The 18F demonstration took place a month after his death. It was organized as a silent demonstration, as an homage to Alberto Nisman, and was devoid of political flags or banners. The rule was followed, with occasional exceptions, by waves of spontaneous clapping or people singing the Argentine national anthem. The city police estimated that the demonstration was attended by 400,000 people.
Corruption cases hotel was the starting point for
The Route of the K-Money investigation. Several high-profile cases took place during the Fernández de Kirchner administration. The first involved the
detention of Venezuelan-American businessman Antonini Wilson in an airport after being found with a suitcase filled with $800,000. This money was illegally provided by Petróleos de Venezuela, the state oil company, to be used for her 2007 general election campaign. Details of the case were explained by businessman Carlos Kauffmann and lawyer Moisés Maiónica, who pleaded guilty. The FPV financing of the 2007 elections caused another scandal years later. Three pharmaceutical businessmen, Sebastián Forza, Damián Ferrón, and Leopoldo Bina, were found dead in 2008, a case known as the
"Triple Crime". Further investigation of Forza, who contributed $200,000 to the campaign, identified him as a provider of
ephedrine to the
Sinaloa Cartel. In 2015, Martín Lanatta and José Luis Salerno, convicted for the killings, claimed that Aníbal Fernández was the boss of a mafia ring that ordered those killings to secure the illegal traffic of ephedrine. General
illegal drug trade grew in Argentina during Kirchnerism, and saw Mexican and Colombian syndicates working with Peruvian and Bolivian smugglers. Conviction rates for money laundering were almost nonexistent. Mariano Federici, head of the Financial Information Unit, said that the "magnitude of the threat is very serious, and this would never have been possible without collaboration from government officials in this country". Amado Boudou, who served as minister of economy during Fernández de Kirchner's first term and vice president during the second, was suspected of
corruption in 2012 case. The Ciccone Calcografica printing company filed for bankruptcy in 2010, but this request was cancelled when businessman Alejandro Vandenbroele bought it. The company received tax breaks to pay its debts, and was selected to print banknotes of the
Argentine peso. It is suspected that Vandenbroele is actually a frontman for Boudou, and that he employed his clout as minister of economy to benefit a company that actually belonged to him. In 2013, the TV programme
Periodismo para todos launched an investigation in purported political corruption. They named their investigation "
The route of the K-Money", to imply that former president
Néstor Kirchner and then-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner were involved. Businessman
Leonardo Fariña said in a television interview that he helped businessman
Lázaro Báez to divert money from public works, and take it to a financial firm located in the
Madero Center luxury hotel. This firm, informally known as "La Rosadita", would have sent the money abroad to tax havens, using shell companies. Given the amounts of money involved, the money was weighed instead of counted to determine the value. Federico Elaskar, owner of the firm, confirmed Fariña's claims in another televised interview. Both of them retracted their statements after the program was aired, but prosecutor
José María Campagnoli confirmed their links with Báez. Báez denied any wrongdoing. Campagnoli was suspended as a prosecutor, accused of leaking information, and abusing his authority. Báez is also linked with the Kirchners to the
Hotesur case, a suspected case of money laundering. According to a criminal complaint by opposition deputy
Margarita Stolbizer, his company Valle Mitre S.A. has rented 1,100 rooms per month, for years, at the Hotesur and Alto Calafate hotels, but without occupying them. These hotels, located in the city of
El Calafate, belong to the Kirchners. An official investigation into the events related by the "route of the K-Money" case was launched in 2013. In June 2023, the judicial case looking into possible wrongdoing by Fernández de Kirchner was dismissed after the prosecution failed to produce evidence that she had been involved with any embezzled funds.
Human rights policy and
Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo The Fernández de Kirchner presidency continued the trials of military personnel involved in the
Dirty War started by her husband. De facto president
Jorge Rafael Videla, who was convicted and given a life sentence in 1985 and pardoned years later, received a new life sentence in 2010. General
Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, who waged war against the leftist guerrillas in the northern Argentine provinces, received a life sentence as well. Another related investigation involved the fate of the children of captured pregnant guerrillas, who were given up for adoption by the military junta. An estimated 500 children were involved. The investigation became controversial during the Fernández de Kirchner administration, as those involved had become adults and some of them refused to participate in
DNA testing. One of those cases was the
Noble siblings case, involving the adopted sons of
Ernestina Herrera de Noble, owner of the
Clarín newspaper. The Kirchners advanced a bill in Congress to make the genetic testing of suspected victims mandatory. Although the measure had popular support, critics considered it a breach of the
right to privacy, and politically motivated because of a dispute between her and the
Clarín newspaper. Hilario Bacca, a confirmed son of disappeared guerrillas, appealed a judicial ruling that sought to change his name, asking to keep the name he had been using.
Relationship with the media ''
Football broadcasting was nationalized on the program
Fútbol para todos and then filled with pro-government advertisements. On the other hand, the country's largest selling newspaper
Clarín, published by the
Clarín Group, is not aligned with the government. The Fernández de Kirchner government launched an illegal campaign against Clarín Group, which included over 450 legal and administrative acts of harassment, as reported by the
Global Editors Network. One of those actions was a selective use of state advertising to benefit the media aligned with the government. Clarín Group launched a constitutional challenge against some articles of the law with the judiciary. The government released an anti-Clarín advertisement claiming it refused to obey the law and may be subverting democracy. She also justified the lack of
press conferences, arguing that it is not important for her administration. The Front for Victory recovered the majority in both chambers of Congress during the 2011 presidential elections, when she was re-elected for a second term. The party had projects to amend the constitution and allow indefinite reelections, but lacked the supermajority required for it. A victory at the
2013 midterm elections would have given such a majority, but the party was defeated in most provinces.
Sergio Massa, a former cabinet minister of the Kirchners, won in the Buenos Aires Province by nearly 10 points with his new party, the
Renewal Front. Argentina lacked a big opposition party since the collapse of the
Radical Civic Union in 2001. Instead, Massa created an alternative party that also stood for Peronism. However, the party still retained a simple majority in Congress. This election was the first one in which teenagers from 16 to 18 could vote. President Fernández de Kirchner, who had undergone brain surgery some weeks before, was hospitalized during the election and unable to join the campaign.
Foreign policy in 2008 at the
2011 G20 Cannes summit in 2011 Fernández de Kirchner was part of the "
pink tide", a group of populist, left-wing presidents who ruled several Latin American countries in the 2000s. This group included, among others,
Néstor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina,
Hugo Chávez and
Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and
Dilma Rousseff in Brazil,
Evo Morales in Bolivia and
Rafael Correa in Ecuador. She has been an unconditional supporter of Chávez and Maduro. As Paraguay rejected the incorporation of Venezuela into the
Mercosur trade bloc, she took advantage of the
impeachment of Fernando Lugo to claim that Paraguay had suffered a coup d'état and proposed to temporarily remove the country from the bloc. With the support of the other presidents, Paraguay was removed for a time, and Venezuela was incorporated into the Mercosur. She maintained her support of Venezuela even during the large
2014 Venezuela protests and the imprisonment of its leader,
Leopoldo López. She had a rocky relationship with the United States. Several items from a US Air Force plane, such as drugs and GPS devices, were seized by Argentine officials, which caused a
diplomatic crisis. US State Department spokesman
Philip J. Crowley said that they were standard tools used in
counter-terrorism tactics which were being taught to the Argentine police during the joint operation, and asked for the return of the seized materials. She blamed the whole country for the 2014 default, ruled by US judge
Thomas P. Griesa. She said in a
cadena nacional ("national network") address that the US may be trying to oust her from power, or even assassinate her. She said this a few days after accusing the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of similar assassination plans against her. The idea was rejected by opposition leader
Elisa Carrió as a mere
conspiracy theory. The 30th anniversary of the
Falklands War was in 2012, and Fernández de Kirchner was increasingly critical of the UK, reiterating the Argentine claims in the
Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute. British Prime minister
David Cameron rejected her comments. Relations were also strained by recent oil explorations in the area, and she threatened to sue
Rockhopper Exploration for it. in 2015 When Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio was elected as
Pope Francis, the initial reactions were mixed. Most of Argentine society cheered it, but the pro-government newspaper
Página/12 published renewed allegations about the Dirty War, and the president of the
National Library described a global conspiracy theory. The president took more than an hour to congratulate him, and only did so in a passing reference within a routine speech. However, due to the Pope's popularity in Argentina, Fernández de Kirchner made what the political analyst Claudio Fantini called a "
Copernican shift" in her relations with him and fully embraced the Francis phenomenon. On the day before his inauguration as pope, Bergoglio, now Francis, had a private meeting with Fernández de Kirchner. They exchanged gifts and lunched together. This was the new pope's first meeting with a head of state, and there was speculation that the two were mending their relations.
Página/12 removed their controversial articles about Bergoglio, written by
Horacio Verbitsky, from their web page, as a result of this change. in 2011 Argentina suffered a terrorist attack in 1994, the AMIA bombing targeting a Buenos Aires Jewish centre, which killed 85 people and wounded 300. The investigation remained open for years, and prosecutor
Alberto Nisman was appointed to the case. He accused Iran of organizing the attack, and the
Hezbollah group of carrying it out. He intended to prosecute five Iranian officials, including former Iranian president
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, but Argentina signed a
memorandum of understanding with Iran for a joint investigation. Nisman accused the president of signing that memorandum for oil and trade benefits, according to hundreds of hours of wiretaps. On 19 January 2015, he was
found dead at his home, a day before a congressional hearing to explain his accusation, which caused a great controversy. As of 2016, both the cases of the AMIA bombing and the death of Nisman remain unresolved, and the courts declined at the time to investigate his denunciation of Fernández de Kirchner. Fernández de Kirchner maintained her positions during several speeches at the
United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) during its yearly meetings of September and had a rocky relationship with Iranian President Ahmadinejad. In 2009, Fernández de Kirchner personally asked Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to cooperate with the Argentine justice to help bring closure to the AMIA bombing. She pointed the belief of both mandataries in God and condemned Ahmadinejad's
denial of the Holocaust as well as other "Western tragedies". In the September 2009 UNGA, she clashed with Ahmadinejad and ordered the Argentine delegation to walk out on Ahmadinejad's speech, denouncing his rhetoric. In return, Iran responded that Argentina's accusations were "unfounded and irresponsible" and denounced the "inept Argentine judicial system and its vulnerabilities to internal and foreign pressures." ==Post-presidency (2015-present)==