Néstor Kirchner

Born in Río Gallegos in 1950, Kirchner studied law in La Plata, married Cristina Fernández there, and returned south to open a firm - later criticized for his silence during the Dirty War. He climbed from mayor in 1987 to governor of Santa Cruz in 1991, riding Eduardo Duhalde's coattails against Carlos Menem. When riots toppled two presidents in 2001, Duhalde took power and tapped Kirchner to block Menem's 2003 comeback; Menem won the first round but withdrew rather than lose the runoff, handing Kirchner the presidency. He kept Lavagna's economic recovery going, swapped defaulted debt, expelled IMF influence, pushed Supreme Court judges out under threat of impeachment, and struck down the amnesty laws shielding Dirty War officers - opening the trials that had been frozen for years. He pivoted Argentina toward Latin America and away from Washington, won the 2005 midterms decisively, then stood aside in 2007 for Cristina, who won. He died of cardiac arrest in October 2010 at sixty, months after being named head of UNASUR.