Profile: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will have no trouble finding her way around Argentina's presidential palace, the Casa Rosada or Pink House.

Cristina's campaign offered few specific proposals

For the past four years, it has been her husband's workplace and from 10 December it is set to be hers for the next four.

Cristina, as the majority of Argentines call her, has often been described as a strong-willed woman, obsessed with her image.

But she is a politician with a long track-record, a record many say facilitated the political rise of her husband, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner. There is no doubt that they make a formidable political couple.

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was born 19 February, 1953, in La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires, where she graduated in law.

She married Mr Kirchner, who she met at university in 1975; a year later, the couple went to live in his home region, the southern province of Santa Cruz.

At the end of the 1980s Cristina Elizabeth Fernandez began her political career, first as a provincial then as a national deputy.

But it was her husband who rose through the Peronist ranks.

In 1991, Mr Kirchner was elected governor of Santa Cruz, a post he won twice more, while Cristina supported him in her capacity as a deputy.

'Wives' duel'

When Mr Kirchner took office as president in 2003 - in the midst of one of the worst economic and social crises in the country - a similar pattern emerged.

By then Cristina Fernandez was a senator herself with her own political weight in Congress, where she actively supported her husband's policies.

Cristina is a livelier character than the rather dour Nestor Kirchner

Cristina cemented her political position in the congressional elections of 2005.

Taking 46% of the votes, she won in the province of Buenos Aires in a contest dubbed "the wives' duel", beating her main rival, Hilda Gonzalez, the wife of the former President Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003).

During Mr Kirchner's administration, there was almost no decision taken in which she did not have a say, her influence exceeding that of an ordinary lawmaker.

She was also the first senator to have an office within the presidential palace, provoking criticism from the opposition.

The governing party insisted that the office was small and is hers by virtue of her position as first lady.

Now Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is set to take occupy the Casa Rosada in her own right.

She is expected to continue her husband's policies, but with more emphasis on international ties, in particular easing the at times strained ties with Washington.

During the campaign she offered few specific policies, took part in no debates and avoided Argentine media interviews until the day before campaigning ended.

'Evita'

As a legislator, Cristina Fernandez was recognised for her intellectual strength and for her determined campaigning in the fields of human rights and women's issues.

But some members of the opposition - and even her own party - seem daunted by her strong character, accusing her of arrogance.

She is said to be obsessed with her fitness and health, as well as her public image. She drinks mineral water from just one brand and often wears designer labels.

Analysts say that perhaps her weak spot is her inexperience in office.

She is certainly taking over at a testing time for Argentina, where despite the economic recovery of recent years, many still live in poverty.

Rising prices and continuing energy shortages seem set to pose very real challenges to her administration.

Cristina Fernandez has been compared to Eva Peron, Argentina's legendary first lady who formed a formidable ruling partnership with her husband Juan Domingo Peron in the late 1940s and early 50s.

But Evita was never elected. Cristina Fernandez, by contrast, has become Argentina's first elected female president.