Argentine President Cristina Fernandez rallied a huge crowd celebrating a decade of the government she and her late husband Nestor Kirchner began in 2003 and suggesting that she may not be stand for another term.
She called the 10 year period a victorious decade, "won not by a government but by the people," which led the country out of an economic crisis to a period of growth.
This year Argentina is to have an election that will determine whether Fernandez will extend her rule beyond 2015. If she gains enough support in congress she will have the opportunity to change the constitutional term limits.
Though she suggested that she won’t try to run for the next term
saying "I'm not eternal, nor do I want to be."
After her husband Nestor Kirchner died of a heart attack in 2010, Fernandez has intensified her government's control over the economy and diverted billions of dollars more to subsidizing the poor.
"Equality is the grand symbol of this decade and of those to
come," she commented during the celebrations.
She succeeded her husband in 2007, taking over a flagging economy
that now appears threatened by high inflation rate, at around 20
percent and among the highest in Latin America according to
AFP.
"This decade represents a tremendous missed opportunity,
which you can see by looking at what other countries in the region
have done with similar possibilities and limitations," said
sociologist and attorney Roberto Gargarella.
However the Kirchners have been praised for policies enabling the prosecution of military officials for human rights abuses committed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship in Argentina.
"It was extraordinary what they did in human rights and economics," said sociologist Jorge Giacobbe. It is reported by AFP.
Political and economic tensions ignited mass protests in the past years and led to a historic default on its $132 billion foreign debt. These tensions "are evidence that the end of a cycle has arrived," noted Giacobbe.