FACTBOX: Five facts about Argentina's president-elect

(Reuters) - Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner won Argentina's presidential election on Sunday and will go from being first lady and senator to the country's first elected woman leader.

Here are five facts about her.

* Fernandez loved political debate from her adolescence and as a law student she was activist in a leftist Peronist movement. Politics has been the most important thing in her life, she has said.

* Fernandez and her husband, President Nestor Kirchner, have formed a tight political partnership since they met and married in law school. Since 1989, Fernandez has served in provincial and national legislatures and she was a prominent senator before Kirchner became president in 2003. She was his top advisor and he is expected to be hers.

* Fernandez, a 54-year-old mother of two, admits she likes to "cake on the makeup" and she has drawn comment for her flashy accessories and clothes. She flat denies widespread reports she has had plastic surgery to stay youthful looking, but says she would consider it further down the road.

* She has been compared often to two other powerful women who rejected the traditional role of first lady: Argentina's Eva "Evita" Peron, wife of President Juan Peron in the mid-20th century; and Hillary Clinton, the wife of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and now a Democratic presidential candidate.

* Fernandez ran largely on her husband's record of cutting poverty and unemployment after the deep 2001-02 economic crisis. She was anointed candidate without battling in a primary and avoided participating in any candidates' debate. She shunned the media until the last week of her campaign and gave few concrete policy statements.