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Published on October 31, 2007

It's not that the Kirchners have much global influence. But they precede by a year the power duo that the Clintons may form in the United States, which gives them an aura of importance that extends far beyond Latin America.

Nestor Kirchner, Cristina's husband and Argentina's current president, did not want to run for office again, despite being legally permitted to do so and voters' preference for him over her. According to Kirchner's inner circle, he wanted to avoid becoming a "lame duck" and losing power at the end of a second term in office.

Here lies a possible inspiration for the early handover to his wife. In Argentina, unlike in the US, re-election is unlimited, as long as the president does not exceed two consecutive periods in office. So, in four years, Cristina may feel the same way, and pass the baton back to Nestor, who in turn could retire in four years to avoid becoming a "lame duck", and so on.

"Buy two for the price of one", Bill Clinton joked about ruling couples when he first ran for president in 1992. Nestor Kirchner doesn't joke. Instead, he busies himself with organising a political movement that will structure his project.

No one believes that such an edifice can be detached from the government, or that he will abstain from taking part in his wife's decisions as president. So Argentineans have, indeed, bought "two for the price of one". They have voted for continuity - the core of Cristina's campaign - because their situation is much improved since 2001, when the country was in the midst of economic and political crisis.

Maybe the most important point - and a key difference with the Clintons - is that this experiment begins in an Argentina that suffers from great institutional vulnerability. Nestor and Cristina will be dealing with a parliament that is much weakened: laws passed by legislators close to the government allow the president to "correct" the budget and issue "necessary and urgent" decrees that substitute for laws. The Kirchners will practice a form of hyper-presidentialism.

Since 2001, the Kirchners have ruled with a siege mentality. They have built up an image of authority and moral inflexibility, and have helped themselves by picking enemies who are damned by all and lacking any kind of power to move against them (the weakened military, for example, or civilian members of the 1976-1983 dictatorship). This has been accompanied by cascades of populist rhetoric: loud voices and defiant words, and promises to fight to the death against ill-defined but malignant economic special interests.

Meanwhile, the types of structural changes that Argentina needs have not been made. Corruption remains. The economic boom brought on by soaring global demand for commodities - Argentina is a leading exporter of soy beans, corn, wheat, honey and limes, for example - resulted from a shift in Argentine farming that pre-dates the Kirchners: the old landholders have given way to operators with managerial skills.

What the Kirchners have done well is to use the wealth gained from exports to strengthen the economy and improve conditions for the middle and lower classes. It is a significant achievement. But Argentina remains overly dependent on commodities, and has failed to encourage economic activity based on its peoples' culture and ingenuity. Moreover, manipulation of official statistics highlights the problems of an economic model based on peso depreciation and the accumulation of reserves. The main concern is inflation, which the government has covered up and contained by precarious price agreements that will not last very long once Cristina takes over.

Some officials claim that Cristina will bring in a new era of higher institutional quality. But the problem with "ruling couples" - in Argentina and, perhaps, throughout the world - is that no law or democratic constitution could envisage them. This is why the Kirchners will rely on secrecy. Nestor will not publicly express any attitude that hints at shared government, but nobody believes that he will be far from the scene.

Institutional quality and lack of transparency are not compatible. Usually, decision-making is confined to ever-smaller circles, with ever-greater secrecy. And, as with humans who mix only with their close relatives, the political gene pool weakens. Yet this seems to be the distinctive operating style of Kirchnerism, torn between an elite born and raised in Patagonia, a few close allies, and everybody else. Their relationship with the press is similar. They talk only to state-controlled media and never hold press conferences.

Hyper-presidentialism, inbred politics and a plan to keep power indefinitely through a legal technicality: all this could put the Kirchners on the same level with the "caudillos for life" that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has brought back to the Latin American scene.

If Cristina wants to improve institutional quality and the problems that the economy is already showing, she will need more than strength. Above all, she will need fresh sources of ideas.

Roberto Guareschi

Roberto Guareschi was the managing editor for the newspaper Clarin in Buenos Aires for 13 years. He is currently a writer and university lecturer.

Copyright: Project Syndicate.

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