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high approval ratings, running at 80 percent, for his performance
in office. Not even the first evidence of corruption among members
of the presidential cabinet soured Cristina's campaign. First, the
only woman ever to hold the job of defense minister, Nilda Garré,
had to answer questions about possible tax evasion in government
weapons sales. She resigned. Despite his own campaign promises to
run a transparent administration, Kirchner was embarrassed when
a paper bag with the equivalent of $64,000 in cash was discovered
in the office bathroom of his new economics minister, Felisa Miseli,
the first woman ever to hold that job. Allegations swirled around the
planning minister for construction kickbacks and also around the
environment secretary for appointing friends and relatives to high-
paying government jobs.
Then, in a bombshell, Ezeiza Airport customs agents arrested a
Venezuelan official of the Chávez government for illegally bringing
in nearly $800,000 in cash for Cristina's campaign. However, with
GNP growth for 2007 coming in at nearly 9 percent, nothing could
stop the juggernaut of Senator Fernández's candidacy. She won the
election outright, with 45 percent of the vote. Her runner-up was
Senator Elisa Carrió, with 23 percent, marking the first time in the
Americas that two women finished first and second in elections for
a head of state. Voting results indicated that Fernández ran strongly
in rural areas and the poorer interior provinces but lost the vote in
the biggest cities to Carrió—despite support for the first lady from
unemployed groups. Having established his wife in the Casa Rosada,
Néstor subsequently won election as chairman of the Justicialist
Party. Speculation arose that the Kirchners intended to alternate in
the presidency over the next 12 years.
Ghosts of the Dirty War
When President Kirchner took the oath of office, Argentine citizens
still had not resolved the question of justice for the torture and dis-
appearance of thousands of their countrymen in the late 1970s. True,
President Alfonsín had attempted an accounting after the fall of the
last military dictatorship in 1983. Facing a rebellion in the military,
Alfonsín finally called a halt to the prosecutions and won passage of
the Due Obedience and Full Stop laws. Those few officers who had
been convicted of human rights abuses and wartime incompetence
received full pardons in 1990 from President Menem, who gave pre-
cedence to solving the economic problems of the time. Nonetheless,
