ARGENTINA’S BOTOXED PESIDENT SEEKS A NEW LIFT
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/7280424/The-Botox-Evita-seeks-a-new-lift.html
The Botox Evita seeks a new lift
A crisis over the Falklands may be the only hope for Argentina’s glamorous leader Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, suggests William Langley.
By William Langley
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, president of Argentina, Photo: MAURICIO LIMA/AFP/GETTY
Late at night, as the long-suffering inhabitants of Buenos Aires ponder the painful inflation-proneness of the cost of their favoured bife de lomo, the clatter of stilettos echoes through the faded grandeur of the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s presidential palace. A new crisis has descended upon the nation, but this time its glamorous leader, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, knows exactly who is to blame.
Away to the south, a giant British oil rig has arrived off the Falkland Islands, the isolated South Atlantic archipelago which Mrs Kirchner has described, in a characteristically fiery speech, as “an illegal colonial enclave”. No one can yet say how much oil lies below the wild waters around the islands, but it is likely that considerable riches are at stake – not the least of which, for the 57-year-old Mrs Kirchner, is the chance of reviving her battered political standing.
Last week, as relations between Britain and Argentina sank back towards the deep-frozen levels of 25 years ago, Mrs Kirchner imposed what amounted to an economic blockade. According to a new government decree, any ship passing through waters claimed by Argentina must have a special permit. To underline how seriously the issue is being taken, the foreign ministry impounded a small Danish freighter accused of carrying oil pipeline equipment.
Liberating the disputed islands has been a sure-fire populist rallying cry for generations of Argentinian politicians: the 1994 constitution declares their recovery to be “a permanent and unrelinquished goal of the Argentine people”. The big surprise is that Mrs Kirchner – unkindly referred to by the stiffer elements of Buenos Aires society as “The Botox Evita” – has embraced the cause so soon.
In a country addicted to romance and intrigue, Cristina’s triumphant ascent to the balcony of the capital’s pink presidential palace carried with it a whiff of older and better times. The first elected female president of an incorrigibly macho nation, she was vivacious, forthright and energetic, hailed as the new Eva Peron – on paper a highly advantageous comparison that the astute Cristina did nothing to discourage.
At election rallies in 2007 she would appear, oozing pampas chic, in tight, Eva-esque outfits (mostly tailored in Milan by Gucci), beneath huge screens bearing photographs of her celebrated predecessor. Keeping her speeches brief and to the point (at least by South American standards), she would wait until the chants of the crowd crashed over her before settling into Eva’s trademark hands-upon-heart pose.
When the votes were counted, she had twice as many as the next most popular candidate. Her doting husband, Nestor, showered her with kisses, and threw her a victory ball where they tangoed until dawn. Then, if you believe the cynics, he got on with the job of running the country himself. For – shades again of Eva – Cristina is the wife, and, in some senses the creation, of a powerful man.
Nestor Carlos Kirchner, a wiry-haired one-time Leftist radical, won the presidency in 2003 and held it until he stepped down, effectively in his wife’s favour. Engrossed throughout most of his term with Argentina’s intractable economic problems, Nestor sensibly steered clear of the Falklands issue. It was broadly assumed, when the husband-and-wife tag team switched places, that Cristina would do the same.
That she hasn’t suggests to her supporters that she really is her own woman. To her critics, it suggests she still has a lot to learn about politics. And to everyone else, it suggests that she’s definitely no Eva Peron. Which is just as well. For the personality cult of Evita has – for all its alluring packaging – become a formidable obstacle to women seeking power in South America.
Born into poverty, Eva Duarte left home in her early teens to seek her fortune in the big city. She became a small-time actress and radio celebrity, and the mistress of a string of largely worthless men, until she met the charismatic politician Juan Domingo Peron in 1944. They married the following year, and when Juan became president two years later, Eva theatrically cast herself as the saviour of the nation’s poor. “What this did,” says Elena Highton de Nolasco, Argentina’s first female Supreme Court judge, “was establish the measure by which all female politicians in Argentina are judged.”
Cristina, by contrast, was born into a wealthy, landed farming family in the southern province of Patagonia. She met her future husband at university; they both trained as lawyers, and entered politics together. They like to portray themselves as a political unit, and it is widely believed that when she leaves office, the wily Nestor will run again.
Yet while her husband is uncomfortable in the public eye, preferring a sheltered life in the back corridors of the Casa Rosada, Cristina’s appetite for hobnobbing with celebrities and making trips to foreign capitals has become notorious. “She loves being photographed, loves getting dressed up, loves the whole glamour package,” says James Neilson, a political columnist for the magazine Noticias. “You can like her or you can’t, but there’s no doubt she’s brought a huge amount of wow-factor to the country.”
But things have been going badly for Cristina almost since election day. An attempt to slap an export tax on farmers triggered a four-month wave of strikes that sent the economy, heavily dependent on agriculture, straight back to the emergency ward. As the country struggled to pay its debts, Cristina demanded that the nominally independent central bank hand its £2 billion cash reserves over to the treasury. When the governor refused, she replaced him with an obscure political crony.
Next she fell out with the country’s press, which asked awkward questions about her conspicuous chumminess with the maverick Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, and in particular about the suitcases of money that were said to have arrived at her election HQ from Caracas. She responded with ham-fisted threats to make the media behave itself, and currently enjoys some of the lowest approval ratings Argentina has witnessed. “The tougher she tries to be, the more she reveals her weakness,” says Buenos Aires political analyst Rosendo Fraga. “It’s hard to see how she can recover.”
There’s always a way back, though. And just when she needed it most, Cristina has a Falklands crisis. Whoever gets the oil in the end, that’s certainly something she can thank Britain for.
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