Former Argentine President Raul Alfonsin dead at 82

(CNN) - Former Argentine President Raul Alfonsin, who led Argentina from military to civilian rule, has died, his doctor said Tuesday.

Dr. Alberto Sadler announced the 82-year-old's death on government television. Alfonsin died of lung cancer, which was diagnosed in 2007.

"He fought for all Argentines," said Mario Losada, an ex-senator with the Radical Party, Alfonsin's party. "He was an authentic and absolute democrat. He paid a cost in preserving the institution, a very high cost ... Alfonsin, unfortunately, died but he saw his work completed."

The lawyer was elected to the presidency in 1983, when he inherited an economy crippled by runaway inflation and a country whose international image had been hurt by its defeat by Britain in the 1982 Falklands War.