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Argentine president to seek re-election
[Al Jazeera] Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the Argentine president, has announced she will seek re-election, ending months of speculation about her political plans.In a nationally televised address on Tuesday, Kirchner said, "we are once again going to go submit ourselves'' to the vote. "I always knew what I had to do because I have always had a high sense of political responsibility and what must be done,'' Kirchner, who succeeded her late husband Nestor Kirchner in 2007, said. "How could I give up and not keep going?" Tuesday's announcement should end any talk of a rival emerging from inside the Justicialist Party, her centre-left and populist Peronist grouping that has dominated Argentine politics for more than two decades. Kirchner's main rival is expected to be politician Ricardo Alfonsin, the son of an ex-president with the Radical Civic Union, another centre-left party that has the second largest showing in the Congress. Polls indicate the Argentine president lacks majority support, but might easily win re-election in the October 23 first-round vote against a divided opposition. Kirchner's plans have been a subject of speculation due to rumoured health issues and her public silence on her political future. Posted by: Fred 2011-06-23 |
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