María Eugenia Vidal

María Eugenia Vidal
Governor of Buenos Aires
Assumed office
December 10, 2015
Vice Governor Daniel Salvador
Preceded by Daniel Scioli
Deputy Mayor
of the City of Buenos Aires
In office
December 10, 2011 – December 10, 2015
Preceded by Gabriela Michetti
Succeeded by Diego Santilli
Minister of Social Development
of the City of Buenos Aires
In office
May 28, 2008 – December 10, 2011
Preceded by Esteban Bullrich
Succeeded by Carolina Stanley
Personal details
Born (1973-09-08) September 8, 1973
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Political party Republican Proposal
Spouse(s) Ramiro Tagliaferro (1998-2016)
Alma mater Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina

María Eugenia Vidal (born September 8, 1973)[1] is an Argentine politician. Affiliated with the Republican Proposal party, she was appointed Minister of Social Development of the City of Buenos Aires, and in 2011 was elected Deputy Mayor. She is current Governor of the province of Buenos Aires, being the first woman and the first non-Peronist since 1987 to be voted into this office.

Life and times

Vidal was born in Buenos Aires. She was raised in the Flores ward and enrolled in the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, earning a degree in Political Science.[1][2] She met Ramiro Tagliaferro, a classmate at the university, and they married in 1998; the couple has a son and two daughters.[1]

She began her career in Grupo Sophia, a think tank founded by Horacio Rodríguez Larreta. She was named director of the group's social policy desk in 2000, as well as of Fundación Creer y Crecer, a think tank organized by Commitment to Change, a conservative political party led by mayoral candidate Mauricio Macri.[3] Vidal was elected to the Buenos Aires City Legislature in 2003, and was appointed Chair of the Committee on Women and Youth.[2] She served in the Human Resources Department at PAMI (the national health insurance service for the elderly and disabled), and as adviser to ANSES (the social security administration), as well as the nation's Ministries of Social Development and Foreign Relations.[4][5]

Vidal was fielded in the Republican Proposal (PRO) party list as a candidate for a seat in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies for Buenos Aires Province in 2005, though unsuccessfully; she was later elected to the Buenos Aires City Legislature.[6] The election of PRO leader Mauricio Macri as Mayor of Buenos Aires in 2007 led to Vidal's nomination as the city's Minister of Social Development. She requested maternity leave from the post ahead of her scheduled December 10 swearing-in for the birth of her third child, and took office on May 27, 2008.[2]

Vidal's profile rose following the 2009 election of Deputy Mayor Gabriela Michetti to a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, and she became Mayor Macri's most visible female adviser.[1] Following Macri's decision to forfeit a PRO candidacy for the 2011 presidential election, and instead seek a second term as mayor, he nominated Vidal as his running mate.[4] The duo were reelected by a landslide on July 31, 2011, receiving over 64% of the vote with sociologist Daniel Filmus coming in 2nd place.[7]

Macri selected Vidal as the candidate of his party to run for governor of the Buenos Aires Province in the 2015 elections. The Radical Civic Union, allied with PRO in the coalition Cambiemos, proposed to replace her with Ángel Posse, but Macri kept Vidal. In another negotiation it was proposed that Sergio Massa resigned as candidate to the presidency and ran for governor in Macri's ticket, but Macri kept Vidal as candidate again. She will be the first female governor of the province, and it is the first time in 28 years that a non-Peronist candidate has won the election in the country's most populous province.[8]

Governor of Buenos Aires

Cabinet

Vidal announced her cabinet on December 4.[9] It is composed by politicians from the Republican Proposal, the Radical Civic Union and former members of Scioli's cabinet.

References

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