Despite her clear mandate, Ms Fernández may find governing more difficult than has Mr Kirchner. Her relationship with the Peronist base of unions, party-machine mayors, and street-protest organisations is distant. It could be strained if she curbs wage increases and public works to fight inflation. “There will be conflicts,” says Manuel Mora y Araujo, a political analyst. “Those people are tough, and they don’t negotiate easily.”
Mr Kirchner could do his wife a favour by taking some unpopular measures, such as raising utility tariffs and export taxes on farm products, over the next month. She may also rely on him in other ways. He has said he plans to devote his energies to creating a new centre-left coalition, gathering together the Peronist left and sections of the Radicals, to form an Argentine equivalent of Chile’s successful governing coalition, the Concertación.
Opponents have criticised Mr Kirchner as high-handed and as a man who has shown little willingness to be held accountable to democratic institutions. Ms Fernández has struck a different tone. In a conciliatory victory speech she offered to “extend a hand” to the opposition. But as she spoke some of her supporters broke into the Peronist party anthem. Whatever Ms Fernández’s intentions, Argentina may be in for rather more continuity than change.
