Now Argentines have yet another tool in their mythmaking kit: “Nestor Kirchner, The Movie,” a documentary that has just opened at 120 theaters around the country, an unusually wide distribution equal to that of movies expected to become box-office hits.
The movie is also being shown at a film festival in the resort city of Mar del Plata, where Fernandez encouraged the crowd Friday to find strength in her late husband’s legacy.
“He came to lift up the Argentines who were humiliated, submerged and forgotten,” the president said, her voice breaking, as it often does, when she talks of “him.” “So if you won’t give up, I won’t either.”
The movie, like Fernandez’ political discourse, is aimed at more than just rallying supporters for a president whose ratings have slipped. Analyst Roberto Bacman said Fernandez is claiming a place for herself and her husband on the same pedestal where the Perons still stand as the transformative figures of modern Argentina.
For most Argentines, “Kirchner is not Peron,” said analyst Rosendo Fraga, who directs the Center for the New Majority think tank in Buenos Aires. “Kirchner is being used to undo Peron,” he said.
Peron left his mark on every aspect of Argentine politics during three presidential terms. With his charismatic wife, he built a movement that united even extremists on the left and right into a grand project so dysfunctional that even today the various branches of the Peronist party include politicians who wouldn’t be caught dead sharing a photo-op together.
“Peronism has a tendency to find myths, figures of great force; It is a characteristic of populism. Kirchner also made a strong mark as president and after his death his figure grew,” Bacman noted.
Kirchner was unquestionably popular during his 2003-2007 mandate, presiding over the early years of an extended recovery from Argentina’s disastrous 2001 economic crisis, and reasserting his nation’s place in the world. But his approval ratings soared after his sudden death of a heart attack in October 2010 at the age of 60.
“In Argentina, death has a greater social significance than in the rest of the world,” said Fraga, recalling how the death of Evita Peron at the age of 33 prompted massive outpourings of grief in 1952.
Fernandez’s standing also shot up in the polls after her husband’s death. She has only worn black since she was widowed, and was re-elected with 54 percent of the votes a year later. But her support has dropped steadily since. About 61 percent of Argentines now disapprove of her performance, according to a September poll of 2,269 adults by Management Fit polling firm that had an error margin of plus or minus 2 percentage points.