Argentina's new Evita has a clear run to office
By Philip Sherwell in Buenos Aires
Last Updated: 1:07am BST 21/10/2007
Tossing back her dyed auburn hair, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner strode beaming on to the stage of the hotel ballroom and waved to the cheering crowd.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner: The new Evita
As she stood in her neatly tailored scarlet jacket, blowing kisses to her supporters, she exuded all the confidence to which she is entitled as Argentina's presidential front runner, a woman of style and ambition who is dominating the polls.
More than 60 years after Eva Perón, the actress who became the president's wife, first spun her magic over an adoring public, the macho world of Argentine politics is again in thrall to a glamorous, feisty First Lady.
Mrs Kirchner, already a popular national senator, is poised to sweep into the Casa Rosada (Pink House) presidential palace in next Sunday's elections after her husband Nestor, the incumbent, stepped aside – honouring an earlier promise to do so after his first term – and nominated her to replace him. Her success as the candidate of the Victory Front alliance will make her the most powerful woman in Latin America.
At the rally of Left-wing groups last week, Mrs Kirchner, 54, sought to burnish her populist and Perónist credentials, offering promises about economic growth, social justice and greater rights for workers as the country recovers from the economic meltdown that robbed millions of their savings five years ago and sent unemployment soaring to 25 per cent.
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