Former Argentine president dies of heart attack

FORMER Argentine president Nestor Kirchner, the current president’s husband and a contender to succeed her in next year’s election, died from a heart attack yesterday.

Kirchner, 60, was considered President Cristina Fernandez’s closest adviser and a major power broker in her government.

“It was a sudden death,” Kirchner’s doctor, Luis Buonomo, told Reuters after the former president died in the southern city of El Calafate, where the presidential couple have a weekend home.

Kirchner was a centre-leftist member of the dominant Peronist party and served as president from 2003 to 2007, when he oversaw Argentina’s recovery from a devastating economic crisis. Many Argentines credit him with putting South America’s number two economy back on its feet.

“He did a lot for the country. The country was broken, destroyed and he straightened things out,” said Lito, 67, a Buenos Aires taxi driver. “He was in love with politics, and he was a strong man, but in the end politics was stronger than him.”

Kirchner was, however, reviled by critics as authoritarian and Argentine assets traded abroad rallied on the news of his death.

“For Argentina, as a credit and a country that is the recipient of investors’ money, there is no better scenario than having Kirchner out of the political arena,” said Roberto Sanchez-Dahl, an emerging market debt manager.

Kirchner was widely expected to run in next year’s presidential election, but concerns over his health increased after he underwent arterial procedures in February and September.

His wife’s government said Kirchner was rushed to hospital in the early hours yesterday after suffering an apparent heart attack.

Kirchner was a combative politician. Like his wife, he peppered his presidential speeches with outspoken criticism of big business and political rivals and that made him a polarising figure in the turbulent world of Argentine politics.