Isabel Perón

Isabel Martínez de Perón (Spanish pronunciation: [isaˈβel maɾˈtines ðe peˈɾon] ^ⓘ, born María Estela Martínez Cartas; 4 February 1931) is an Argentine former politician who served as the 46th President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads of state in the world, and the first woman to serve as president of a country.

Isabel Perón was the third wife of President Juan Perón. During her husband's third term as president from 1973 to 1974, she served as both Vice President and First Lady of Argentina. Following her husband's death in office in 1974, she served as President for almost two years before the military took over the government with the 1976 coup. Perón was then placed under house arrest for five years before she was exiled to Spain in 1981. After democracy was restored in Argentina in 1983, she was a guest of honor at President Raúl Alfonsín's inauguration. For several years, she was a nominal head of Juan Perón's Justicialist Party and played a constructive role in reconciliation discussion, but has never played any important political role afterwards.

Isabel Perón is one of the greatest expressions of the right-wing peronism and mainly of the orthodox peronism. Ideologically, she was considered close to corporate neo-fascism. During her short tenure in office, she relied, at different points in time, on pro-neoliberal capitalism politicians, politicized military, and trade unions.

In 2007, an Argentine judge ordered Perón's arrest over the forced disappearance of an activist in February 1976, on the grounds that the disappearance was authorised by her signing of decrees allowing Argentina's armed forces to take action against "subversives". She was arrested near her home in Spain on 12 January 2007. Spanish courts subsequently refused her extradition to Argentina.

Since the death of Carlos Menem on 14 February 2021, Perón is the oldest living former Argentine president.