BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) ? Argentine President Cristina Fernandez swept to a landslide re-election on Sunday, winning about 55 percent of the vote with a huge lead over her nearest rival, an exit poll showed.
If the result is confirmed, the center-leftist will win a second four-year term with a strong mandate to deepen interventionist economic policies hated by big business but popular with many Argentines.
The government-funded exit poll put Socialist provincial governor Hermes Binner a distant second with around 14 percent, local media said, declaring Fernandez the victor. The results of the poll were in line with numbers published earlier by Reuters.
Fernandez, the widow of former President Nestor Kirchner, has been helped by an economy growing at about 8 percent per year and a field of feeble opposition candidates.
Her policies anger pro-market farmers and business leaders but have the support of voters who benefit from generous welfare spending for poor families and the elderly.
The former senator may also regain the control of Congress she lost in the 2009 mid-term election, with help from allies.
The sharp-tongued Fernandez has nationalized private pension funds, raised soy export taxes and kept quotas on wheat and corn shipments. Growers say such measures hurt investment in farming, Argentina's top source of hard currency.
The president was swarmed by followers as she voted in her home province of Santa Cruz. She defended her policies, saying they have brought solid growth at a time of global turmoil.
"When you look at what's happening in the world, you can feel very proud to be Argentine," Fernandez, dressed in black and her hair tinted red, told reporters just after casting her ballot at a voting station at a school.
(Additional reporting by Jorge Otaola; Editing by Kieran Murray)
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