/ARTS WEEKLY/BOOKS-ARGENTINA: Biographer Bows to ‘Queen Cristina’

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 10 2005 (IPS) - The books written by Argentine journalist Olga Wornat on the private lives of leading Latin American politicians have tended to be highly controversial. Her biography of Senator Cristina Fernández, the wife of Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, is no exception, albeit for different reasons.

In her latest book, “Queen Cristina”, published just before the Oct. 23 parliamentary elections in Argentina, Wornat paints a highly sympathetic portrait of Fernández, a key political figure in the centre-left government. Some critics have wondered whether Wornat has really come across a near perfect, independent woman with no hidden vices this time – or whether she was commissioned to write the biography.

The answer can be found in the preface. The author has known both Fernández and her husband since the 1970s, when they were all young militants at university together. She admits that this book “is different from my previous ones.”

“This is not a denunciation of corruption, abuses or scandals, nor does it describe lewd private behaviour by public officials,” she announces right from the start.

“This book tells the story of a powerful woman, with her light and dark sides. This is a woman whom I have known since we were teenagers, whom I admire with a critical eye, and with whom I have agreements and differences. A woman who is light-years away from the wives of the other presidents we have had since 1983,” she remarked.

Wornat has previously written about the first and second wives of former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), Zulema Yoma and Cecilia Bolocco, a Chilean. Like Kirchner, Menem belongs to the Justicialista (Peronist) Party, but they are on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum.

She then moved to Mexico and published a critical biography of Marta Sahagún, the former secretary of Mexican President Vicente Fox who is now first lady. In another book, she alleged that Sahagún’s sons from a previous marriage had become suspiciously rich as a result of government contracts and shady business deals.

Given her track record, “Queen Cristina” was anxiously awaited by readers eager to learn intimate details about Kirchner’s wife, who is extremely protective of her privacy. This was especially so because Fernández has refused to give interviews in Argentina since shortly after her husband assumed the presidency in May 2003.

Critics were quick to attack Wornat’s alleged lack of objectivity because the book launch coincided with the final run-up to the first legislative elections during Kirchner’s term. At the time, Fernández enjoyed a comfortable lead in opinion polls in the eastern province of Buenos Aires, the most populous electoral district in Argentina.

The Oct. 23 elections brought Fernández a landslide victory that surpassed even what the polls had predicted. She retained her seat in the Senate, but representing the province of Buenos Aires rather than the southern province of Santa Cruz.

Nevertheless, analysts agree that it is very unlikely that the book contributed significantly to her triumph.

The outcome confirmed Fernández’s stature as a prominent figure on the national political scene, capable of running for the Argentine presidency in the 2007 elections.

Wornat describes Fernández as a “tough, intelligent, argumentative, defiant, ambitious woman, second to none since Eva (Duarte) Perón,” the wife of three-times president Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974) who founded the Justicialista Party. She also says Fernández is a dedicated, loyal, generous and highly-qualified woman with great integrity.

The book says more about the Kirchner-Fernández political vision than about the private life of a couple who have been married for 30 years. When it does take a more personal turn, it is to show hidden virtues or to justify some of Fernández’s more controversial actions.

Wornat relates that when Kirchner suffered intestinal bleeding, his wife tearfully promised that she would not let him be photographed by the press. The author believes that this incident was a watershed in the couple’s relations with journalists, since neither of them will now give interviews or press conferences.

According to the author, the Kirchners have rejected top-down party orders since they were young. From the very start of their relationship, they have always worked closely together in partnership, planning for the long-term, says Wornat.

The most incisive and revealing part of Wornat’s investigation focuses on the Kirchners’ participation in the leftwing Peronist Youth as student militants in the 1970s. The couple was hit close to home by the assassination of fellow-militants for political reasons on the eve of the 1976 coup d’etat, while they were studying law at the public university of La Plata, capital of the province of Buenos Aires.

Many of their fellow students from that era – whose ranks included Wornat herself – were “disappeared” before and during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Others, who survived the persecution, are today in government positions.

The book tells how Kirchner and Fernández, after they were married, hid fellow-militants fleeing political persecution, in the squalid boarding houses they called home during those years.

Wornat makes a connection between these experiences and the Kirchner’s joint commitment to the defence of human rights, particularly in seeking justice in cases of crimes that have remained unpunished since those dark days of Argentine history. During the military dictatorship tens of thousands of people fled into exile, and 30,000 were “disappeared”, according to human rights organisations.

Fleeing from what they believed to be certain death at the hands of the de facto military regime, the Kirchners sought refuge in Santa Fe, Kirchner’s home province. There they set up a law practice and amassed a modest fortune, but they did not escape being detained for a time for political reasons, and their law offices were the target of bomb scares.

They have two children. Their 28-year-old son lives in Santa Cruz and cultivates a low profile, in contrast to the children of other Latin American presidents who are often involved in scandals of one sort or another. Their daughter is still a teenager whose face is virtually unknown to the media.

The couple returned to politics in the dying days of the dictatorship, creating the Victory Front, a faction in the Peronist party that is now heading a transformation of the party at the national level, reports Wornat.

As to the balance of power between them, Kirchner has always stood for executive posts while Fernández has kept her sights on the legislature.

The author assures her readers that the Kirchners are both political heavyweights but that they do not compete with each other. Both of them work towards the same goals, and they profess mutual respect and admiration, she says.

Kirchner was first elected mayor of Río Gallegos, the capital of Santa Cruz, before he served as governor of the province for three terms. Fernández, meanwhile, became a national parliamentary deputy and later senator for Santa Cruz.

When Kirchner took office as president in 2003, Fernández became the main defender of his centre-left political vision in the Senate. She forms part of Kirchner’s inner circle, where key decisions are made, and her opinion is highly regarded by the president.

In the book, Fernández refutes some of the criticisms of which she has been the target since her husband became president.

She admits to always making sure she looks her best and to owning an extensive wardrobe, and confesses that she will not go out in public unless she is dolled-up “from head to toe”. However, she denies that this personal trait of hers dates from her husband’s inauguration as president, as some of her critics have suggested. “She always dressed like a princess,” someone who knew her as a young woman says in the book.

Finally, Wornat claims that Fernández is not out to push a feminist agenda. The senator is even opposed to this term. Nevertheless, her career is the very opposite of that of a traditional “first lady”.”I don’t like the term ‘first lady’, because it has connotations that imply a kind of woman’s role that has nothing to do with me,” Fernández states.

She recalls an incident in which a woman journalist asked if she was planning to resign from the Senate once her husband became president. Her response was similar to the ones given by the front-runner for Chile’s December presidential elections, socialist candidate Michelle Bachelet, a mother of three who is long separated from her husband.

“What an absurd question,” Fernández replied. “Why should I resign? They always ask women, ‘How do you handle the children? How do you make time to look after them?’ Do they ever ask men questions like these? That is discrimination. I told the journalist: Why should I have to resign? Why doesn’t the president resign?”