Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

Born in La Plata in 1953, she studied law and moved to Patagonia with her husband Néstor Kirchner, climbing from provincial legislator to national senator by 1995 while he became governor. After serving as first lady during his presidency from 2003 to 2007, she won the presidency herself, inheriting the Peronist "Kirchnerism" mantle. Her first term opened with a bruising fight over agricultural taxes, followed by pension nationalization and the 2012 seizure of energy firm YPF; her second began with a landslide 54% re-election in 2011 - the widest margin since democracy returned - but ended in currency controls and sovereign default in 2014. Widowed when Néstor died suddenly in 2010, she left office in 2015 with approval above 50%, then faced a cascade of indictments: obstructing the 1994 AMIA bombing investigation, bribery-for-contracts schemes, dollar futures fraud. In December 2022 a court sentenced her to six years and permanent disqualification for steering public works money; appeals courts upheld the verdict in 2024, the Supreme Court in 2025.