Who is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner?

LAST MONTH a prosecutor in Argentina sought a 12-year jail term for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the country’s vice-president, for her alleged involvement in funnelling padded public contracts to a crony at a cost of $1bn to the taxpayer. Ms Fernández, who denies all allegations as political persecution, called on her supporters to gather outside her apartment in Recoleta, a posh neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, the capital. As she was greeting some of them on September 1st, a man pointed a pistol close to her head and pulled the trigger. No shot was fired, seemingly because the gun malfunctioned. Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández (no relation), called it the “gravest” event since the country returned to democracy in 1983. He declared a public holiday to allow tens of thousands of Peronists—the movement to which both belong—to march in support of the vice-president. But who is Ms Fernández, Argentina’s most polarising politician?