Around 29 million Argentines went to the polls yesterday to elect their president for the next four years. Incumbent president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was returned with the largest landslide victory since democracy was restored in 1983, breaking a whole series of records in Argentine election history, including regional ones too such as being the first ever female re-elected president in the Americas.

All of this is happening only two years after copping a brutal swing against her government at the midterm election — losing majority in both chambers of parliament — which was naturally expected to be the beginning of the end for her government. Instead she defied all odds in only 24 months to become Argentina’s strongest leader since Juan Perón.

Yesterday’s election drew the course of the next four years and confirmed some remarkable political changes in Argentina. It renewed half of the lower house and one third of the Senate, nine governors and provincial parliaments, and many municipalities. Election day is a formidable democratic fiesta in this South American nation, always keeping in mind that democracy has been intermittent in its 201-year history, although yesterday’s election is the seventh in a row since democracy was restored in 1983, an unprecedented milestone in a country — and a region — where military led coup d’etats, usually ordered by the White House, was a norm every few years throughout most of last century.

This year’s Argentine general election actually commenced 10 weeks ago on August 14 when Argentina celebrated its first ever open, simultaneous and mandatory primaries, a compulsory visit to the polls that Argentines had to make to select the candidates of each political party or coalition. The primaries most certainly anticipated the scenario of what was to come, as its resounding numbers installed a shared hypothesis: broadly speaking, especially in the presidential race, the die had been cast.

Incumbent President Cristina Fernandez alongside her running mate Amado Boudou, Argentina’s current Economy Minister, of the Left-wing Peronist Frente Para la Victoria party — Spanish for Front for Victory — confirmed in the primaries what opinion polls have been claiming for the past 18 months or so: a landslide victory, crushing her closest adversary, Radical Civic Union Party leader Ricardo Alfonsin — son of the late former president Raúl Alfonsin, Argentina’s first president after democracy was restored in 1983 until his bitter downfall due to crippling inflation and socio-political unrest in 1989 — by a massive margin of nearly 38%. Cristina’s ticket won in Buenos Aires City and in every province except San Luis. An unbelievable result considering her government took a battering at the last time Argentina went to the ballot box, the midterm elections of 2009.

Before the 2009 midterm elections, Cristina’s approval ratings more than halved within the space of a mere few months — 58% down to 23% — due to her government’s conflict with the agricultural sector over a proposed rise in export tariffs, which was heavily slanted by Argentina’s conservative sector in accomplice with the media-terrorism that Cristina and her government suffered at the hands of Argentina’s massively concentrated multimedia corporations, such as the Clarín group, owner of Argentina’s highest circulated newspaper, highest rating news channel, highest rating free to air network, largest pay television operator and owner of hundreds of regional television and radio stations.

On that occasion Cristina’s government copped a brutal swing against itself, losing a strong majority in both houses of congress and many predicted the start of the end of her government.

During times like these, governments in this sort of situation commence to up their guard, placing themselves in damage control, turning on the political catenaccio — football enthusiasts will understand the last one — which in politics leads to negotiating your way out with the opposition to avoid a political slaughtering and turning down the heat towards the end of their time in office as if wanting to leave the arena in the best shape possible. Cristina and her government did the absolute opposite.

Following the thrashing at the 2009 election Cristina very bravely led a government that turned up the debate on many central issues that haunted a deeply wounded country such as Argentina for decades. While taking advantage of a prosperous economic period due to Argentina’s multi-billionaire soybean exports throughout much of the last decade, she began tackling obsolete policies concerning industrial relations, social and economic issues.

Without abounding much in the numbers of yesterdays result, there is a lot of information to dissect which goes beyond the cold numbers and explains why Cristina was returned to government and from the dust, very nearly literally. Consider the data beyond 2003 in Argentina:

Unemployment down to historical measures, number of formal workers rose, wages have increased periodically, improved relationship between the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the country’s external debt. Central bank reserved higher than ever, millions of elderly Argentines now are eligible to earn an aged pension, something not available to them before new legislation was approved by Cristina in recent times, which includes an increase in pension rates twice a year. Three and a half million of children living in poverty now receive welfare which includes basic immunisation and mandatory schooling in contrast to the corrupt welfare systems in place beforehand in Argentina where resources were in the hands of power brokers linked to authorities and rarely ended up in the reach of the needy unless they followed orders or were supporters of the government of the day. Same-s-x marriage and adoption laws. A new radio and television law heavily counterbalancing concentration of monopolised media, which includes nationalisation of television rights of first division football matches, the sport being a passion of multitudes in this country. Industries that were closed in the 1980’s and 90’s have been reactivated. The education budget has risen and so has teachers, academics and researchers, salaries. Scientists have been repatriated, reversing a damaging trend after their exodus from the country during the Military Dictatorships, Alfonsin and Menem years.

All these measures have all been welcomed massively by the Argentine people, rapidly restoring Cristina’s approval ratings to how they were prior to her conflict with the agro sector. Something Julia Gillard could only dream of back home in Australia.

Cristina’s husband, predecessor and Argentina’s most important political power-broker of the 2000’s, Nestor Kirchner, died of a heart attack nearly a year ago, on October 27. At the time of his death there was widespread speculation that he could contest the election in place of Cristina. Although Cristina at the time was already enjoying high approval ratings, this factor could may well have attributed ongoing support throughout the last twelve months.

Another pivotal ingredient that has rapidly restored Cristina’s approval rating in such a radical way is undoubtedly her political enemies and their inability to form a solid force of opposition, constantly engaged in internalist fights rather than acting as the alternative government with real policies to offer to the Argentinian people.

All coalitions contesting Cristina Fernandez in this election have locked in their respective agreements within the last months leading up to the poll, while some have split even before contesting the primary.

Although Socialist candidate — medical doctor and current Governor of Argentina’s third largest province, Santa Fe — Hermes Binner came in fourth in the primaries, he campaigned heavily and well leading up to the federal election and came in second, in spite of the fact that he is still a very long way away from being a real threat of opposition the government and yesterday ended up being the worst ever placed runner up in Argentine election history since 1983, being defeated by roughly 37% of votes with close to 100% counted.

Yesterday’s result will prove to be a heavy defeat for the sectors that desire to drag Argentina back to the neoliberal policies that hurt the country so much during the 1990’s, pushing it into heavy debt and into the massive socio-political crisis that Argentina ended up in the early 2000’s.

The fiercest opponents of Cristina, Elisa “Lilita” Carrio — second-placed presidential candidate last time around in the 2007 election — and ex-president Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003) were practically thrown out the window, they’re political careers trampled on the floor by the 11.5 million Cristina voters.

Lilita lost more than 90% of the votes she received four years ago. She proclaimed herself opposition leader four years ago and was a favourite guest of Argentina’s news and current affairs programmes — which unwittingly contributed to her political suicide by offering her so much airtime — and materialised yesterdays biggest election failure, pulling her party, the Coalición Civica (Spanish fof Civic Coalition) down with her. The omens are premature, but the future looks bleak, to be cautious.

The massive turnout at the primaries and yesterday’s election demonstrate that the people of Argentina have no intention of their country returning to the dominant Washington Consensus position — which crippled their local economy — that both Nestor Kirchner and later Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner pulled them away from.

There is absolutely no doubt that Argentina has grown exponentially since the Kirchner’s came to power in 2003. But no one can deny that tough times lay ahead for Argentina with the global financial crisis keeping everyone on the edge of their seats around the globe. Even though Argentina fared well in the first stage of the GFC during 2008/9, nothing guarantees that they are armoured against it this time.

The question Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner needs to ask herself now that the election has come and gone is: what do we do with this landslide win?