Néstor Carlos Kirchner Ostoić (25 February 195027 October 2010) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the president of Argentina from 2003 to 2007. A member of the Justicialist Party, he previously served as Governor of Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003, and mayor of Río Gallegos from 1987 to 1991. He later served as first gentleman of Argentina during the early tenure of his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the first person to serve in this role. Ideologically, he identified himself as a Peronist and a progressive, with his political approach called Kirchnerism.
Born in Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Kirchner studied law at the National University of La Plata. He met and married Cristina Fernández at this time, returned with her to Río Gallegos at graduation, and opened a law firm. Commentators have criticized him for a lack of legal activism during the Dirty War, an issue he would involve himself in as president. Kirchner ran for mayor of Río Gallegos in 1987 and for governor of Santa Cruz in 1991. He was reelected governor in 1995 and 1999 due to an amendment of the provincial constitution. Kirchner sided with Buenos Aires provincial governor Eduardo Duhalde against President Carlos Menem.
Although Duhalde lost the 1999 presidential election, he was appointed president by the Congress when previous presidents Fernando de la Rúa and Adolfo Rodríguez Saá resigned during the December 2001 riots. Duhalde suggested that Kirchner run for president in 2003 in a bid to prevent Menem's return to the presidency. Menem won a plurality in the first round of the presidential election but, fearing that he would lose in the required runoff election, he resigned; Kirchner became president as a result.
Kirchner took office on 25 May 2003. Roberto Lavagna, credited with the economic recovery during Duhalde's presidency, was retained as minister of economy and continued his economic policies. Argentina negotiated a swap of defaulted debt and repaid the International Monetary Fund. The National Institute of Statistics and Census intervened to underestimate growing inflation. Several Supreme Court judges resigned while fearing impeachment, and new judges were appointed. The amnesty for crimes committed during the Dirty War in enforcing the full-stop and due-obedience laws and the presidential pardons were repealed and declared unconstitutional. This led to new trials for the military who served during the 1970s. Argentina increased its integration with other Latin American countries, discontinuing its automatic alignment with the United States dating to the 1990s. The 2005 midterm elections were a victory for Kirchner, and signaled the end of Duhalde's supremacy in Buenos Aires Province.
Instead of seeking reelection, Kirchner stepped aside in 2007 in support of his wife, who was elected president. He participated in Operation Emmanuel to release FARC hostages, and was narrowly defeated in the 2009 midterm election for deputy of Buenos Aires Province. Kirchner was appointed Secretary General of UNASUR in 2010. He and his wife were involved (either directly or through their close aides) in the 2013 political scandal known as the Route of the K-Money, even though no judicial investigation ever found any proof of wrongdoing by Néstor or Cristina Kirchner. Kirchner died of cardiac arrest on 27 October 2010 at age 60 and received a state funeral.
Early life
Kirchner was born on 25 February 1950, in Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz, a federal territory at the time. His father, Néstor Carlos Kirchner, of German-Swiss descent, met the Chilean María Juana Ostoić, of Croatian descent, by telegraphy. They had three children: Néstor, Alicia, and María Cristina. Néstor was part of the third generation of Kirchners living in the city. As a result of pertussis, he developed strabismus at an early age; however, he refused medical treatment because he considered his eye part of his self-image. When Kirchner was in high school he briefly considered becoming a teacher, but poor diction hampered him; he was also unsuccessful at basketball.
Kirchner moved to La Plata in 1969 to study law at the National University. During this period, the decline of the Argentine Revolution, the return of former president Juan Perón from exile, the election of Héctor Cámpora as president, his resignation and the election of Perón, and the beginning of the Dirty War had led to severe political turmoil. Kirchner joined the University Federation for the National Revolution (FURN), a political student group whose relationship with the Montoneros guerrillas is a matter of debate. Kirchner was not a leader of the group. He was present at the Ezeiza massacre, in which right-wing Peronist snipers opened fire on a celebration of Juan Perón's return at the Ezeiza International Airport. He was also present at the expulsion of Montoneros from Plaza de Mayo. Although Kirchner met many members of the Montoneros, he was not a member of the group. By the time the Montoneros were outlawed by Perón, he had left FURN.
In 1974, Kirchner met Cristina Fernández, three years his junior, and they quickly fell in love. They were married after a courtship limited to six months by the political turmoil in the country. At the civil ceremony, Kirchner's friends sang the Peronist song "Los Muchachos Peronistas". He graduated a year later, returned to Patagonia with Cristina, and established a law firm with fellow attorney Domingo Ortiz de Zarate. Cristina joined the firm in 1979. By the time of Kirchner's graduation and move to Patagonia, Juan Perón had died, his vice president and wife, Isabel Perón, had become president. Isabel Perón was unseated by a coup d'état which installed a military government. The Kirchners worked for banks and financial groups which filed foreclosures, since the Central Bank's 1050 ruling had raised mortgage loan interest rates, and also acquired 21 real-estate lots for a low price when they were about to be auctioned. Their law firm defended military personnel accused of committing crimes during said war. Forced disappearances were common during the Dirty War, but unlike other lawyers of the time the Kirchners never signed a habeas corpus. Julio César Strassera, prosecutor in the 1985 Trial of the Juntas case against the military, criticized the Kirchners' lack of legal actions against the military, and considered their later interest in the issue a form of hypocrisy.
The Dirty War eventually ended, and the National Reorganization Process allowed political activity in preparation for a return to democracy. Kirchner led one of the three internal factions of the local Justicialist Party (PJ), but Peronist Arturo Puricelli prevailed in the primary elections. Kirchner founded the Ateneo Juan Domingo Perón organization, which supported deposed president Isabel Perón and promoted political dialogue with the military. Cristina Fernández became an attorney of the PJ in Santa Cruz, with the help of Rafael Flores, a former friend from the FURN. Raúl Alfonsín, who was running for president for the Radical Civic Union (UCR), denounced an agreement between the military and the Peronist unions which sought an amnesty for the military. Kirchner organized a rally on behalf of Rodolfo Ponce, a union leader mentioned by Alfonsín in his denouncement. Alfonsín won the 1983 presidential election, and Puricelli was elected governor of Santa Cruz. Puricelli sought to unify the local Peronist movement by adding members of the other factions into his government, and appointed Kirchner president of the provincial social-welfare fund.
Kirchner quickly expanded the activities and scope of his office, building a parallel state. This soon started a conflict with Puricelli. Instead of being fired, Kirchner resigned and accused the governor of reducing the funds for social welfare. He ran for mayor of Río Gallegos in 1987 and won by the slim margin of 110 votes. Kirchner's friend, Rudy Ulloa Igor, helped him to victory by registering some groups of Chilean immigrants to vote (immigrants were allowed to vote in mayoral elections), and persuading them to vote for Kirchner. Julio de Vido and Carlos Zannini began working with Kirchner at this time. Kirchner used the state-owned media to promote his activities. The Peronist Ricardo del Val was elected governor that year, and the province was impacted by inflation in 1989. Kirchner became the main opponent of del Val, who was impeached and removed from office in 1990 due to the inflation crisis.
Governor of Santa Cruz Kirchner ran for governor of Santa Cruz in 1991. Although he received only 30 percent of the vote, below the 36 percent of the UCR, he was elected due to the Ley de Lemas that added the votes for the Peronist faction of Puricelli to his own. When Kirchner took office, Santa Cruz was experiencing an economic crisis, with high unemployment and a budget deficit equal to 1.2 billion pesos, which amounted to an equal number of U.S. dollars because of the Convertibility plan. He expanded the number of provincial Supreme Court justices from three members to five and appointed three judges loyal to him; this gave him control of the provincial judiciary. Kirchner was criticized for preventing the investigation of corruption cases. Santa Cruz received 535 million pesos in oil royalties in 1993, which Kirchner deposited in a foreign bank. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly which drafted the 1994 amendment of the Argentine Constitution proposed by the Peronist president Carlos Menem. Kirchner voted against the amendment that would allow the reelection of the president, which was approved. Locally, he proposed an amendment to the provincial constitution authorizing indefinite reelection of the governor. Menem and Kirchner were reelected to their respective offices in 1995. Kirchner established a faction in the PJ opposing Menem's neoliberal economic policies, but Eduardo Duhalde, governor of the populous Buenos Aires province, ignored him and rallied a stronger opposition to Menem within the PJ.
The number of state workers grew from 12,000 to 70,000 during Kirchner's administration. The creation of private-sector jobs in the province was minimal, and private companies were driven away. A local journalist interviewed by journalist Jorge Lanata said that this placed de facto restrictions on economic freedom and allowed Kirchner to control the population. Most available jobs were in public works.
With Menem constitutionally restricted from running for a third presidential term, Duhalde ran for president in 1999. Kirchner sided with Duhalde in his dispute with Menem and sought reelection as governor of Santa Cruz. The PJ was defeated on the national level by the radical Fernando de la Rúa, who became president. Kirchner was reelected, despite the growth of the UCR in the province. Following an economic crisis, De la Rúa resigned two years later during the December 2001 riots. The Congress appointed Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, governor of San Luis, as interim president. When Rodríguez Saá also resigned, Duhalde was appointed president. He was the politician with the highest legitimacy to be appointed president, as he had placed second in the 1999 elections and won the 2001 legislative elections in the Buenos Aires province, the district of Argentina with the largest population. He slowly restored the economy and hastened the presidential election when two piqueteros were killed during a demonstration. However, the provincial elections were held on their original dates.
2003 presidential election