By Bryan Weiner
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the polarizing and charismatic leader of Argentina, has been a very active social media user since she opened her Twitter account in 2010. Recently, however, her activity has been very quiet, as she has been recovering from a blood clot that resulted from a mysterious fall that she took in August 2013. However, upon emerging from her mandated bed rest, she posted a picture of herself on Instagram leaning out over the railing of the Casa Rosada, addressing the masses of her admiring well-wishers. This image was very evocative of Eva Perón, one of the most important Argentinian political figures who Kirchner has frequently been compared to; and a figure who Kirchner has frequently compared herself to. The manufacturing of her image as a glamorous and romantic populist, a “defender of the people”, an Evita of the 21st century, has been a huge part of Kirchner’s persona as a president. That image, however, has taken as a serious blow, and the Kirchner who is emerging may be more of a “faded diva” rather than the revolutionary who she paints herself out to be.
Kirchner was born on February 19th 1953 in Tolosa, a suburb of La Plata in the capital territory of Buenos Aires to Eduardo Fernández and Ofelia Wilhelm. Not much is known of her childhood days and Kirchner herself, seems to have distanced herself from her family, but it is known that she was born into a very humble family. Her father was a bus driver and was often absent and her mother worked for a local union and was the matriarch of the family. But her image as a diva who has always been extremely concerned about her appearance has been something that she has constructed from her earliest years. She is quoted as saying that “yo nací maquillada” (I was born wearing makeup). The only early pictures that have been released of her have been shots demonstrating this glamorous personality. This mysterious past and attention to image and detail has shaped her present persona.
Kirchner’s known biography starts in 1970 when she began University at the University of La Plata. She began studying psychology, but switched over to law in 1973. The defining moment of this time period, however, was her participation in the Peronist Youth Movement. This was a populist political movement based on the tenets of Justicialism, a political party and ideology developed by Juan Perón and his wife Eva Perón. During her involvement in the youth movement, she met her future husband, the late Nestor Kirchner. The two of them never got deeply involved in the student movement, and after the 1976 coup d’etat, they became lawyers in the region of Rio Gallegos, a remote part of southern Patagonia. From there they began to develop their political careers together and in 2003, Nestor was elected president to save Argentina from an economic collapse through a revival of the tenets of Peronism. After his presidency, Cristina took the reins and has continued to manufacture this image of herself as a modern-day Eva Perón, effectively trying to merge both the glamour and the politics of the Argentinian icon into her persona. She is, however, on shaky ground and while she is still recovering her health, her party needs to recover much of its early momentum.
