Word: ndez
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...rare to see Argentina's First Family convey political humility. But as President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband (and presidential predecessor) Néstor Kirchner absorbed their startling defeat in Sunday's midterm elections, they both offered unusual hints of contrition. "In a democracy, you win and you lose," said Fernández after her Peronist party's congressional majority had vanished, leaving her to deal with a potentially hostile parliament over the last 2½ years of her term. Kirchner, who resigned as the Peronists' leader after suffering a close but stunning loss...
...Politicos all over Latin America will be scrutinizing those mistakes as well. The Argentine poll was a referendum on Fernández's often confrontational leadership style - which voters and financial markets alike decided isn't all that well suited to rescuing South America's second-largest economy from the ravages of a global recession. The Fernández-Kirchner comeuppance may well be taken as a first sign that the economic downturn is reining in the region's increasingly powerful Presidents, especially the leftists who this decade have become a popular counter to U.S. political and economic hegemony...
...responded by saying he was "willing to talk" about matters like the scores of jailed dissidents in Cuba. Obama kept the ball rolling, suggesting in Port of Spain that the U.S. "seeks a new beginning with Cuba" in a speech that Latin presidents like Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner called a big step toward "re-stabilizing" U.S.-Latin American relations...
...Resistance to the nationalization of pensions is strong, but it may not rise to the fever pitch of this year's running battle between the nation's farmers and Fernández over a hefty tax hike on soy exports. A four-month farm strike ended in a humiliating defeat for Fernández when her initiative was killed by a deciding vote cast in Congress by her own Vice President, Julio Cobos, whose approval rating shot up to 67% in opinion surveys as a result...
...Fernández and Kirchner retain the support of the strong Peronist Party structure, while the opposition remains as divided now as it was during last year's elections. Peronist Senator Eric Calcagno sees the President's current troubles as a backlash from Argentina's business establishment against her stated aim of more evenly distributing Argentina's wealth. "After the economic crisis in 2001, the Argentine establishment accepted becoming a minority partner in a political project it doesn't really agree with, but now that the economy has been solved, the message is: We want you out," says Calcagno...