A PUBLIC official fired from her job in Argentina’s government has claimed she was the long-time lover of the husband and predecessor of the woman who let her go – President Cristina Kirchner.
Elizabeth Miriam Quiroga told this week's Noticiasmagazine she had been in a relationship with Nestor Kirchner, who died suddenly last October, since the 1990s. The claim follows her dismissal as director of the Presidential Documentation Centre last month.
The revelation risks harming Mrs Kirchner’s attempts to secure re-election in October’s presidential election. After near record low approval ratings since shortly after her election in 2007, she has recently surged in polls on a wave of sympathy following former president Kirchner’s death from a heart attack.
Mrs Kirchner conducted a very public mourning for her husband, including a state funeral that resembled a political rally, and subsequent cancellations of a series of public events for which she claimed she was too distraught to attend.
During this time her poll numbers surged from the mid-20s to 51 per cent in the latest survey. This had led analysts to re-evaluate her chances of securing a second term, largely written off as recently as last September.
But now Mrs Quiroga’s claim will add credence to long-held suspicions in political circles in Buenos Aires that the Kirchners’ marriage was part of a carefully orchestrated media campaign designed to further their political careers.
After a successful term from 2003 to 2009, Mr Kirchner passed up the possibility of a second term in favour of supporting the candidacy of his then senator wife. Opponents then claimed they intended to use the influence of office to orchestrate alternating presidencies which would free them from term limits.
In the interview Ms Quiroga said “it was well know that I was Kirchner’s lover”. She said their relationship dated back to his time as governor of the province of Santa Cruz and that after he became president in 2003 she left everything behind to follow him to Buenos Aires.
