Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the 2000s. This group included, among others, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Kirchner has been an unconditional supporter of Chávez and Maduro. As Paraguay rejected the incorporation of Venezuela into the Mercosur trade bloc, she took advantage of the impeachment of Fernando Lugo to claim that Paraguay had suffered a coup d'état and proposed to temporarily remove the country from the bloc. With the support of the other presidents, Paraguay was removed
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner president, and automatically assumed the presidency on his death. The transition from Néstor Kirchner to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was also the first time a democratic head of state was replaced by their spouse without the death of either. He remained highly influential during his wife's term, supervising the economy and leading the PJ. Their marriage has been compared with those of Juan and Eva Perón and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Media observers suspected that Mr. Kirchner stepped down as president to circumvent the term limit, swapping roles with his wife. When Néstor Kirchner refused to run for re-election in