Cristina Kirchner, the widow who won over Argentina

Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner, who swept to a second four-year term Sunday, has built up an image as a black-clad widow, both fragile and authoritarian, seductive and abrupt. The 58-year-old lawyer, known for her heavy make-up and long auburn hair, has ridden a wave of public support since the sudden heart attack of her husband and political partner Nestor Kirchner almost one year ago. He was credited with managing the couple's presidential dynasty and had been expected to run again after serving from 2003-7. Since his death, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, also known as CFK, has won new support with a more conciliatory tone. "Cristina is very rational, she likes analyzing things," said Alberto Fernandez, head of Nestor Kirchner's government and of Cristina's to 2008. "He was much more intuitive." Their centre-left politics push forward a wing of the broad Peronist movement of three-time ex-president Juan Peron and his populist wife Evita, or Eva Duarte Peron. Cristina admires the legacy of Evita, a glamorous figure who reached out to the poor and still appears with Juan Peron on the flags of Kirchner supporters. Like Peron, the Kirchners won over many of Argentina's poor districts with generous public spending. While Nestor imposed his policies, Cristina shows a need to justify herself, often giving long speeches without notes and using figures to back up her arguments. Her ease at public speaking, practiced during a spell in the Senate, also gives her an air of a "school mistress," according to critics. "She only listens to herself. There's no room for dialogue," said Hermes Binner, her socialist rival who trailed far behind, according to Sunday's results. That trait was apparent during a dispute over raising taxes on farmers in 2008, when Cristina refused all negotiation and slid in the polls. Her own vice president voted against her and moved to the opposition. A solitary figure who sometimes suspends activities due to her blood pressure, Cristina is often criticized for her taste in designer labels. "She has always been very stylish and very made up," said Alberto Fernandez. "We could wait with Nestor for an hour for her to finish getting ready to go to dinner." A militant for the Young Peronists in the 1970s, Cristina excelled in law studies at the public La Plata university, in Buenos Aires province. She met Nestor, three years her senior, when she was 20 years old, and married him six months later. They moved to Nestor's inhospitable Patagonian province of Santa Cruz during the 1976-1983 dictatorship and had two children, Maximo and Florencia. After her husband's death, Cristina's mourning became a political weapon alongside strong growth and a weak, fractured opposition. Supporters are enthusiastic despite runaway inflation and an enormous hike in the couple's personal fortune-of 928 percent between 2003 and 2010, according to their official declarations. When Cristina chokes up and speaks of her husband, she pulls at the heartstrings of many Argentines. Her delayed announcement to stand for re-election also drew out the drama. "I gave everything I had to give," she declared in May, before changing her tune by June to: "I always knew what my duty was."