Argentina's new president, Cristina Fernández Kirchner, won Sunday's election with a solid majority that allows her to succeed her husband Néstor in December, becoming that country's first woman leader - and the first woman anywhere to succeed her spouse after a democratic vote.
Although she is a political figure in her own right, her programme will continue his and she will confront challenges arising from his very success over the last four years in office. In that time he helped transform Argentina's economy after the disastrous crisis that impoverished its citizens in 2001.
Mr Kirchner broke most of the rules of globalised capitalism to pull his country out of that financial collapse. He defaulted on debt owed to the International Monetary Fund and devalued the peso. The government has yet to repay much of the money owed to private investors who were similarly defaulted. He used the extraordinary powers granted to the incoming president by the congress to direct state investment towards productive economic sectors, to alleviate poverty and shore up the interest groups and political networks on which his Peronist party has traditionally relied.
He was then fortunate indeed that he came to power as a world commodity boom for Argentine products such as soya beans, wheat and beef brought a rich flow of funds into the economy. He adeptly channelled them into creating jobs, boosting public spending to combat poverty, raising the minimum wage and enforcing price controls on transport and public utilities.
Mrs Kirchner ran a simple campaign based on the merits of these achievements and bland assurances that she would keep them in place. Relying on personalised projection rather than sustained political argument she mobilised suburban working class and poorer rural dwellers - the classical Peronist constituency - with a distinctive programme combining populist methods and social democratic content. Her party also increased its majority in congress. Wealthier and better educated voters in the capital Buenos Aires supported an opposing anti-corruption candidate.
Rising inflation, growing concern about the lack of legal and constitutional constraints on the government and fears that another cycle of economic and political turbulence is on the way are some of the main issues Mrs Kirchner will face. She works as a team with her husband and is expected to concentrate more on international affairs than he did. Her victory confirms the political trend that has brought left-wing leaders to power in most other Latin American countries over recent years.