Argentina Gets Loyal No. 2

President Cristina Kirchner's emergency surgery for thyroid cancer puts a spotlight on her vice president, Amado Boudou, a guitar-playing former economy minister who will run the country for at least three weeks in January during her hospitalization and convalescence.

In the campaign leading up to Mrs. Kirchner's landslide October re-election, the telegenic Mr. Boudou's penchant for partying with rock stars and other celebrities often overshadowed his policy ideas.

But analysts say the leftist Mrs. Kirchner brought Mr. Boudou onto the ticket precisely because he lacked the political heft within the ruling Peronist party to emerge as a potential rival to her. Now that Mrs. Kirchner will be forced to retreat from the political stage for at least a few weeks after surgery next Wednesday, she is probably relieved to have chosen Mr. Boudou, analysts say.

Earlier this year, after she announced her plans to run for a second term, Mrs. Kirchner said the main reason she picked Mr. Boudou as her running mate, over some powerful Peronist governors, was his "loyalty."

Most medical experts consider the 58-year-old Mrs. Kirchner's prognosis to be good, and investors and politicians seemed to be calmly assimilating the announcement of the president's illness late Tuesday.

A vibrant-looking Mrs. Kirchner appeared Wednesday at an event with provincial governors and joked with Mr. Boudou, 48, about the responsibilities he was about to assume.

"Look at how important it is that the vice president thinks the same way as the person who has been chosen to guide the destiny of the country," she said. Then, amid laughter from the audience, Mrs. Kirchner looked toward Mr. Boudou and added: "Watch what you do!"

Mrs. Kirchner also made allusion during her remarks to the disastrous falling out she had with her vice president, Julio Cobos, during her first term. In July 2008, amid a bitterly polarizing Congressional debate over a proposal by Mrs. Kirchner to increase the grain export tax, Mr. Cobos was put in the position of casting the tie-breaking vote in his role as president of the Senate.

Mr. Cobos, who came from an agrarian district, broke with Mrs. Kirchner and voted no, dealing the government a humiliating defeat. For the next three years of Mrs. Kirchner's presidency, Mr. Cobos was ostracized by Mrs. Kirchner and her allies.

Today, by contrast, having Mr. Boudou in place "allows Cristina to recover without any worry about scheming by the VP to usurp power or otherwise take advantage of the situation," said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones. "Were the current vice president not a diehard Cristina loyalist, I suspect a host of topics, ranging from succession to potential attempts to take temporary control, would be causing great consternation for Cristina and her inner circle."

Mr. Boudou is generally liked by investors, who consider him one of the more philosophically market-friendly members of the Kirchner government. When Mr. Boudou took over as economy minister in July 2009, he set out priorities that many investors agreed with, including trying to restore credibility to Argentina's tainted inflation statistics and paying off Argentina's approximately $7 billion debt to the Paris Club of wealthy nations.

Nevertheless, Mr. Boudou never got far in achieving those aims due to resistance from more-populist members of the Kirchner inner circle, including Mrs. Kirchner's late husband and predecessor Nestor, who died of a heart attack in October 2010. But markets gave Mr. Boudou credit for having the right idea.

In Argentina, Mr. Boudou and his girlfriend, Agustina Kampfer, a television journalist, get paparazzi treatment from the media, which consider them one of the country's most glamorous couples. Mr. Boudou is known for tooling around on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and for collecting electric guitars.

Mr. Boudou's fun-loving ways have sometimes raised eyebrows in government circles, and Mrs. Kirchner hasn't hesitated to keep her No. 2 in his place. During a recent political event, Mrs. Kirchner wryly referred to Mr. Boudou as a "rich kid from Puerto Madero," an elegant part of the capital.