President Cristina Kirchner took the oath of office for a second term, offering a full-throated defense of the populist economic policies that have generated rapid growth while often putting the country at odds with the international financial community.
Mrs. Kirchner, 58, touted a "new Argentina," where the interest of foreign banks and big corporations were taking a back seat to the interests of Argentine citizens and consumers, who have enjoyed an economy growing about 9% this year.
"I'm not the president of the corporations," she said. "I'm the president of the 40 million Argentines."
She highlighted achievements that Argentine has made in the decade since it defaulted on its foreign debt and then pushed through a renegotiation on favorable terms. She said that Argentina has gone from spending 5% of its output on servicing debt and 2% on education a decade ago, to its current position of spending 6.5% on education and only 2% on the debt.
The leftist Mrs. Kirchner embarks on her second four-year term with a tremendous store of political capital and few rivals—even as Argentina's fast-growing economy is showing some signs of fragility.
She referred to the current debt crisis facing Europe "as a mirror of Argentina in 2001," when it announced its debt default. She also defended Argentina's rejection of orthodox economic policies recommended by the International Monetary Fund. She said Argentina had been vindicated in paying off its debt to the IMF five years ago and telling it to stay out of Argentina's business. "No one can be head of the Argentine economy," she said. "The head of the Argentine economy sits here by decision of the people."
Mrs. Kirchner wore black, in a tribute to her late husband and predecessor, Néstor, who died of a heart attack in October 2010. She also alluded to her husband in her oath, vowing to discharge duties "as God, country and he demand."
Mrs. Kirchner swept to victory in October's election with 54% of the vote, a greater share than any president since Argentina returned to democracy nearly three decades ago. Her faction of the Peronist party controls both houses of Congress. Meanwhile, the opposition is divided, lacking a charismatic leader. Much of Mrs. Kirchner's political strength comes from the strong performance of Argentina's economy, which has boomed thanks largely to high prices for farm commodities.
But yellow lights are flashing on the economic front. Inflation stands at around 25%, due to lax monetary policy and heavy state spending. The government recently imposed restrictions on foreign-exchange transactions to throttle a surge in capital flight, triggered by Argentine savers betting on a weaker peso. Meanwhile, the current account, the broadest measure of trade, has swung into negative territory this year.
Mrs. Kirchner announced the creation of a new secretariat that would consolidate oversight of commercial affairs. According to local press reports, Mrs. Kirchner will put the secretariat in the hands of the government official who is most feared by business, Guillermo Moreno.
The Buenos Aires daily El Cronista said Mr. Moreno will head a new beefed-up secretariat that will expand his reach into international commerce and formalize the responsibilities he has recently assumed monitoring foreign-exchange markets.
Mr. Moreno, whose title up to now has been secretary of internal commerce, has been responsible for enforcing price controls, overseeing Argentina's widely criticized inflation index and pressuring currency-exchange houses and businesses to limit the outflow of dollars. Business executives refer to him as El Loco, or the Crazyman, for the intensity he brings to his job.
Mrs. Kirchner, a lawyer, met her late husband in the 1970s when they were college students who opposed the military dictatorship. While Mr. Kirchner served three terms as governor of the Patagonian state of Santa Cruz, Mrs. Kirchner made a name for herself serving in Congress and the Senate.
The then-obscure Mr. Kirchner was elected president in 2003 amid an economic crisis so severe that some better-known Peronist politicians didn't want to run. After Argentina's economy came back strongly, Mrs. Kirchner ran for the presidency in 2007, in part of a strategy of alternating presidencies that she and her husband had devised to prevent Argentines from wearying of them.
Mrs. Kirchner started off her first term disastrously, getting into a blowup with Washington over a U.S. prosecutor's investigation into Miami man who allegedly delivered a suitcase of cash from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to Mrs. Kirchner's 2007 campaign.
Mrs. Kirchner's popularity took another hit when she became embroiled in a bitter dispute with farmers over an effort to push through an increase in the grain export tax. When the Kirchners' faction of the Peronist party lost control of Congress in midterm elections in 2009, many analysts all but wrote the Peronist power couple off.
But the Kirchners bounced back strongly as the economy recovered from the 2008-09 global crisis and her opponents made continued tactical missteps. The death of Néstor Kirchner created a wave of public sympathy for Mrs. Kirchner that further boosted her re-election campaign.
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