Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

She was President of Argentina in 2007–2015 and Vice President in 2019–2023. A 2022 corruption conviction was confirmed by the Supreme Court in June 2025, with a lifetime ban on public office. She is named among the possible contenders in the 2027 presidential election.

Career

A lawyer by training, she was a provincial deputy in Santa Cruz in 1989–1995, a national senator in 1995–1997, 2001–2007 and 2017–2019, and a national deputy in 1997–2001. She was First Lady in 2003–2007, then won the presidency in 2007 with 45% in the first round and in 2011 with 54.11%. She was Vice President under Alberto Fernández in 2019–2023 and has led the Justicialist Party since 2024.

Positions

Wikipedia describes her as a Peronist and progressive and associates her with Kirchnerism, the current named after her and her late husband Néstor Kirchner.

Controversies

In 2022 a federal court convicted her in the Vialidad case, over 51 road contracts in Santa Cruz awarded to businessman Lázaro Báez, and sentenced her to six years in prison and a lifetime ban from public office. An appeals court upheld the verdict in November 2024, and on 11 June 2025 the Supreme Court confirmed it, ending appeals. She denies wrongdoing and says she is a victim. Wikipedia also reports that she has been under house arrest in Buenos Aires since June 2025, and that the Supreme Court in December 2024 revoked an acquittal in the AMIA memorandum case and ordered a retrial. In the dollar-futures case she was acquitted.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia · Citizen Digital

Photo: Víctor Bugge, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons (cropped)