Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Carlos Kirchner [ ˈnɛstɔr ˈkarlɔs ˈkirʃnɛr ] (born February 25, 1950 in Río Gallegos , Santa Cruz Province, † October 27, 2010 in El Calafate , Santa Cruz Province) was an Argentine politician . From May 25, 2003 to December 10, 2007 he was President of Argentina and from May 4, 2010 until his death, the first General Secretary of the Union of South American Nations .
Life
Early years
Kirchner grew up in Río Gallegos. His mother was a Chilean woman of Croatian origin. His father's ancestors come from German-speaking Switzerland (from the Bernese Oberland ). From 1969 to 1976 he studied law at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata . After graduating, he worked as a lawyer and debt collector in his native Río Gallegos for the money lender FINSUD. In this function, more than twenty properties were transferred to him.
Health problems and death
In the course of 2010, Kirchner's health problems increased. In February he was operated on after a stroke on the carotid artery , followed by an angioplasty in September. Despite his doctors' dissuasion, he continued to devote himself intensively to politics.
Kirchner died of a heart attack on October 27, 2010 . He died in a hospital in the city of El Calafate .
Personal
Kirchner was married to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner , who became President in December 2007 . He had met her at university. The two children Máximo and Florencia are from the marriage .
Political career
In his youth, Kichner was initially not interested in politics. During his student days, however, he became a member of the left-wing Peronist group FURN (Federación Universitaria de la Revolución Nacional) and later had contacts with members of more radical Peronist movements such as the Juventud Peronista . He belonged to the urban guerrilla Montoneros , which was closely connected to this organization, but by his own admission never a member. After returning to Río Gallegos in 1976, he was briefly detained twice.
In 1996 Néstor Kirchner founded the Corriente Peronista , a "progressive" direction within the Peronist Party , which is in the tradition of Juan Domingo Perón . He named Felipe González and Bill Clinton as political role models .
Mayor and Governor
Kirchner was mayor of his hometown Rio Gallegos in southern Patagonia from 1987 to 1991 . On December 10, 1991, he was elected governor of the Santa Cruz Province and re-elected in 1995 and 1999. When he took office in 1991, the Santa Cruz Province had approximately $ 1.2 billion in debt. In 2001 the province was virtually debt-free, which can be attributed to Kirchner's recruitment of foreign investors in the mining and tourism industries.
In the presidential elections on April 27, 2003, in which a total of 18 candidates ran, Kirchner received 22% of the votes in the first ballot and was thus behind the former President Carlos Menem , who was also Peronist , who got around 24%. The runoff election, which is necessary in itself, did not take place, however, as Menem withdrew his candidacy. On May 25, 2003, Kirchner took the oath of office as Argentine President before Congress.
Presidency 2003–2007
During his tenure, the troubled Argentine economy stabilized, but most of the credit for the economic growth of this period goes to his Minister of Economics, Roberto Lavagna . His wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner became the country's first elected president on October 28, 2007, and took office on December 10, 2007 as the immediate successor of her husband.
Controversy
Even if Néstor Kirchner's popularity ratings in surveys were unusually high, especially in the early days, there was increasing criticism of his administration from 2006 onwards.
Although Kirchner always campaigned for human rights even before he came to power in 2003, critics accused him of using this topic only for demagogic purposes. He was often accused of undemocratic behavior. The number of presidential decrees during his term in office exceeded those of the laws approved by Congress, which was viewed by many as a circumvention of the legislature. Some journalists' associations also saw in many of its measures (program bans, layoffs of journalists, targeted procurement of state advertising, etc.) an authoritarian curtailment of the freedom of the press.
Kirchner's government was not free from scandals. She refused to bring Santa Cruz Province assets back into the country from overseas bank accounts. Kirchner was also blamed for the possible involvement of his government in the drug trafficking scandal of the airline Southern Winds , the downright "purchase" of the opposition MP Borocotó, the removal of all members of the Argentine High Court who were replaced by friendly judges, maintenance and financial support from "piqueteros" oficialistas ”( piqueteros ) as a party push force and tool of intimidation. In addition, there was the accusation (made by employees of INDEC themselves) of deliberately deceiving the public with manipulated inflation data via the INDEC statistics office from the beginning of 2007 .
literature
- Llanos, Mariana / Nolte, Detlef: Menem throws in the towel. A new political beginning in Argentina under Néstor Kirchner? In: Brennpunkt Latin America 10/2003, Institute for Ibero America customer: Hamburg, ISSN (to download: PDF )
- Ramspeck, Jürgen: Government Communication in Argentina: The Example of the Kirchner Government. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-639-03322-9 , 92 pages.
Web links
- Nestor Kirchner in the nndb (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ex-President Nestor Kirchner died , Der Standard (accessed October 27, 2010)
- ↑ Der Standard : Kirchner becomes first Secretary General of UNASUR , May 4, 2010
- ↑ a b c Militancia, estudio y amor en La Plata , El Día, October 28, 2010
- ↑ El ex mandatario ya había sido intervenido dos veces en el año , La Nación , October 27, 2010
- ↑ Kirchner murió en Calafate , La Voz del Interior , October 27, 2010
- ↑ Kirchner aclaró que nunca fue montonero , Clarín, May 6, 2003
- ↑ La vida de Néstor Kirchner , La Voz del Interior, October 27, 2010
- ↑ Analysis ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. the newspaper La Nación
- ↑ Article in La Voz del Interior
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Eduardo Duhalde |
President of Argentina 2003–2007 |
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner |
| - | Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations 2010 |
Maria Emma Mejía |
| Héctor Marcelino García | Governor of the Province of Santa Cruz 1991–2003 |
Hector Icazuriaga |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kirchner, Néstor |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kirchner Ostoić, Néstor Carlos |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Argentine politician, president |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 25, 1950 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Río Gallegos , Santa Cruz Province |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 27, 2010 |
| Place of death | El Calafate |