Fabiana Ríos

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María Fabiana Ríos (born 31 March 1964 in Rosario, Santa Fe) is an Argentine politician of the party ARI (Afirmación para una República de Iguales, "Support for an Egalitarian Republic"). She is the governor of the province of Tierra del Fuego since 17 December 2007. ^[1] She is currently the only woman governor in Argentina.

Ríos was elected governor on 24 June 2007. She is the first woman to be elected governor of an Argentine province and the first woman governor of Tierra del Fuego Province. Prior to that she was a National Deputy. ^[2]

Ríos graduated as a pharmacist from the National University of Rosario. She moved to Tierra del Fuego, a scarcely populated province on the southern end of Argentina, at the age of 23, and married Gustavo Longui, with whom she had two daughters. She occupied several important posts in the healthcare administration of the city of Río Grande.

1 Early political career
2 Governor elect
3 References
4 See also

[edit] Early political career

Ríos entered politics under the mentorship of the Socialist legislator Alfredo Bravo, and started working within the Alliance for Work, Justice and Education (the short-lived coalition that brought Fernando de la Rúa to the presidency in 1999). She was elected a provincial Deputy in the legislature of Tierra del Fuego in 1999, where she served until 2003.

Upon the breakup of the Alliance after the 2001 crisis, Ríos aligned with Elisa Carrió and worked on the construction of the local ARI. She ran for governor in 2003, but came in the third place. ^[3] Later that year, she was elected National Deputy for Tierra del Fuego, defeating the Justicialist Party and obtaining the first electoral victory for the nascent ARI at the provincial level.

[edit] Governor elect

Ríos ran for governor again at the 2007 election, and came close second at the first round, behind the Justicialist-Kirchnerist governor and candidate for re-election Hugo Cóccaro. In the subsequent runoff election she beat Cóccaro with about 52% of the vote. She took office on 17 December 2007.

The triumph of Ríos was especially marked by the media as she was the first woman to be elected governor in the history of Argentina (other women have served as provincial governors, but only as vice governors taking the place of governors who had previously resigned). The Tierra del Fuego election also received increased exposure in the Buenos Aires-based media because it was held on the same day as the mayoral elections that made Mauricio Macri the Chief of Government of the Argentine capital. Both elections resulted in the defeat of candidates explicitly backed by the national government. ^[4]