When Argentine president Cristina Kirchner nationalized the Spanish-owned YPF oil company this past April, Washington Post correspondent Juan Forero proclaimed her “the standard-bearer of populist nationalism in Latin America.” At the time, her decision played well at home: One poll found that 62 percent of Argentines supported it. Yet the YPF seizure was a desperate move by a desperate government trying to boost its domestic political standing and camouflage its economic failures. Seven months later, Kirchner’s approval rating is deep underwater, and her government is facing enormous public protests.
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