MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Kirchner cabinet choice to reveal clues.

Néstor Kirchner, Argentina's president-in-waiting, was on Monday putting the finishing touches to his executive cabinet, which he is expected to unveil on Wednesday, four days before he takes power.

The eagerly awaited list of names is likely to speak volumes about how the relatively obscure left-of-centre governor of Santa Cruz province in Patagonia intends to go about his presidency.

Some names are already known. Most important, Roberto Lavagna will stay on as economy minister. Mr Lavagna is well respected and the International Monetary Fund welcomes the decision.

In his dealings with the fund, Mr Lavagna has been tougher than any Argentine economy minister in recent history. But the IMF has warmed to him as Argentina's economic prospects improve. IMF staff say privately that Mr Lavagna "knows the issues".

In addition, Ginés González García, outgoing president Eduardo Duhalde's health minister, is almost guaranteed to keep his post. Aníbal Fernández, production minister, is also likely to retain a cabinet position - although probably as employment minister. These two appointments would help repay Mr Duhalde for his unerring support during Mr Kirchner's campaign.

Rumours on Monday suggested that the post of foreign minister could go to Abel Posse, a writer and Argentina's current ambassador to Spain.

Mr Kirchner favours resurrecting the Mercosur regional trade bloc over the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, and his eventual foreign minister will have a particularly demanding job.

For the remaining posts, Mr Kirchner faces tough decisions. Unlike former president Carlos Menem and Mr Duhalde, Mr Kirchner does not have his own bloc within Congress. Nor does he enjoy much support among Argentina's 24 provincial governors, who wield huge influence in national politics. Those facts, together with his small mandate - 22 per cent from the first-round vote before Mr Menem left the race - have led to speculation that he will seek ministers from beyond his own Peronist party.

Yet most believe the composition of Mr Kirchner's first cabinet will be determined by his strong character and style of government as provincial governor. Mr Kirchner has practised a mix of big government and fiscal prudence, stashing more than $500m (?429m, £306m) of public funds into a Swiss bank account for safekeeping.

Local residents say that aspect of Mr Kirchner's character - some insiders describe the 53-year-old's personal approach to money as "miserly" - comes from his Swiss grandfather, who settled in Patagonia as a shopkeeper, gradually building his fortune by careful planning and saving.

His roots have also given him a strong sense of family, and have made him inherently mistrustful of outsiders. He avoids delegating the decision-making process whenever possible and relies on a tiny circle of confidants.

Ricardo Rouvier, a Buenos Aires-based political analyst, describes him as "a man who doesn't have a particularly democratic spirit".

All that, say analysts, suggests Mr Kirchner will try to retain as much of his present team as possible, rather than recruit outsiders.

What remains unknown is how successfully he and his team will make the leap from governing a province of fewer than 200,000 people - and closer to Antarctica than to Buenos Aires - to presiding over Latin America's third-biggest economy.