Argentina is about to explode? The request for the conviction of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner exacerbates polarization

The request for 12 years in prison, perpetual disqualification and confiscation of the assets of the vice president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, tensed the political climate and increased the polarization of the South American country.

The day before, prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola accused the former president of having led an illicit association that defrauded the State for an amount of 1,000 million dollars.

The allegation was immediately celebrated by the partisan and media opposition, which considered the ex-president’s guilt proven, while the ruling party defended her and assured that she is the victim of a judicial persecution (‘lawfare’) because there is no evidence of the crimes which they (prosecutors) assure she committed.

«If something was missing to confirm that I am not before a Constitutional court, but before a media-judicial firing squad, it is how you are preventing me from exercising my right to defend myself», was Fernández de Kirchner’s first reaction, after the court rejected her request to expand her preliminary statement.

After she was prevented from speaking formally in the process, the vice president announced that she would then issue a message through her social networks on Tuesday, which sparked strong expectations, since harsh criticism towards the Judiciary is expected.

The public debate for and against Fernández de Kirchner, a figure who often arouses love and hate, intensified.Antagonisms in Argentine politics

President Alberto Fernández, the national government, governors, mayors, senators, deputies and Peronist militants came out to support her, in a show of unity that the ruling party had not had for a long time.

They even compared her case with that of the former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was convicted, but was later released when it was found that the case against him had been a ‘frame-up’ to outlaw him. Today, he is the candidate leading the presidential polls heading into the elections on October 2.

The polarization, which is permanent in social networks, was replicated physically in Fernández de Kirchner’s house in Buenos Aires, where several groups of people first came to celebrate the request for her conviction, but were later displaced by the thousands of supporters who came to support her to the cry of «All with Cristina!» and «Cristina must not be touched!».

In the midst of the tension, the capital’s Police, which is governed by Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, an opponent of the Peronism, repressed the vice president’s supporters.

“The only thing that Rodríguez Larreta lacked to be Macri: the city police used sticks, pepper spray and tear gas to repress citizens who approached Juncal and Uruguay as a show of support in the face of the insults from a group of macristas that acted as hooligans», accused the vice president.

In response, the head of government warned her not to «engender more violence».

However, by that time, Francisco Sánchez, a deputy from the alliance headed by Macri and Rodríguez Larreta, had called for the «death penalty» against Fernández de Kirchner, but no one from his space came out to criticize him or disassociate themselves from the proposal.Partisan justice in Argentina?

Meanwhile, the anti-Peronist politicians and media, tried to give an epic tone to the prosecutors’ request and compared their plea with the historic «Never again» pronounced by Julio César Strassera in 1986, during the trial that condemned the leaders of the military junta that led the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983).

The difference, however, is that the convictions of the repressors who committed crimes against humanity do have a broad social consensus.

On the contrary, the request for the conviction and disqualification against Fernández de Kirchner is questioned by a large sector of Argentinian society, due to the manifest partiality of a large part of the Judiciary, which tends to act for political interests, as Sergio Moro, the prosecutor who promoted the sentences against Lula and later joined the cabinet of Jair Bolsonaro, acted in his time.

In this case, for example, it was shown that Luciani, one of the prosecutors who requested the conviction of the vice president, and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu, president of the court that judges her, played soccer together on one of the fields of the former president Macri’s house.Support for Christina

The discussion has already had international repercussions due to the support that various personalities have expressed to Fernández de Kirchner, including the former presidents of Bolivia, Evo Morales; from Colombia, Ernesto Samper; and from Ecuador, Rafael Correa; and former French presidential candidate Jean Luc Mélenchon.

«As we had warned, the sister (Cristina) is the victim of an inclement attack of ‘lawfare’, or political war that uses justice as a weapon, to politically disqualify her. We repudiate the actions of the prosecutors who imitate Judge Moro. Strength sister Cristina!», wrote Morales.

Samper also alluded to a ‘lawfare’ by assuring that «they moved with strange speed a judicial process that does not involve her, going over due process and that seeks to prevent her from running in the next elections: a complete farce».

For his part, Mélenchon expressed solidarity with Fernández de Kirchner. «The use of justice for political reckoning continues throughout the world», he lamented.

Meanwhile, Correa reposted the posters that call for protests «against the political, mediatic and judicial persecution» of the Argentine vice president.What did Christina say?

The vice president of Argentina denounced this Tuesday that the accusations against her and the request for imprisonment, disqualification and confiscation of her assets only respond to judicial persecution, since there is no evidence of the accusations.

«It is a fierce political and mediatic campaign», said the former president in a message that was broadcasted live from the Senate, and in which she assured that the trial began with «a fiction» from «a false and quite bad script».

“This is not a trial of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, it is a trial of Peronism, of the national and popular governments, of those of us who fight for memory, truth, justice”, she stated, explaining that what is sought is to discipline the political leaders so that they do not fight against the power of the business men and the media.

She also assured that, when she said that they already had the sentence written in advance, she fell «short», because in reality the whole case demonstrates the shortcomings of a judicial system related to former President Mauricio Macri, who acts with partisan interests and who only seeks to outlaw her. .

She recalled – for example – that the macrismo harassed and forced former attorney Alejandra Gils Carbó to resign and set up a massive and illegal espionage system from the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI). In addition, Fabián Rodríguez, Macri’s former legal adviser, has an international arrest warrant.

“Rodríguez is the only fugitive politician and he is not a Peronist, he belongs to you, the macristas. None of us fled when they persecuted us, threatened us and released us. We stay here in Argentina to face what we have to face. You run away at the first summons», she stressed.Persecution by the Argentine justice?

She also considered that the process is «a farce» that goes beyond the «lawfare» (judicial persecution) that there has been in Bolivia, Brazil or Ecuador, since it is not only about stigmatizing progressive leaders.

“It is about confusing the popular governments with illicit associations, they protect those who truly stole from the country. The judicial party is not only going to impute us, it protects them [the macristas]», she said.

The day before, prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola accused the former president of having headed, together with her deceased husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner, an illicit association that defrauded the State of an amount of 1,000 million dollars by directing public road works from the province of Santa Cruz to a single businessman, Lázaro Báez, a friend of the Kirchner family.

Along with her, 12 other businessmen and former officials are accused. All will be able to offer their final statements in the coming weeks, and it is expected that the court will announce their sentence no later than December.

On Monday, prosecutors asked for a sentence of 12 years in prison, lifelong disqualification from holding public office and the confiscation of the vice president’s assets, which tensed the political climate and increased the polarization of the South American country, since the opposition considers proven her guilt and the officialdom, her innocence.

While the prosecutors argued, the former president surprised the court when she asked it to allow her to expand her investigative statement, since she nor her lawyers had had access to the evidence that was presented in the accusationto, which violates her right to her defense.

As the court rejected her request, Fernández de Kirchner decided to broadcast a live message that on Tuesday became the main point of the political agenda and was followed by tens of thousands of people.

New findings

Throughout a presentation that lasted 90 minutes, the vice president presented testimonies, documents, calls and messages that contradict the prosecutors, and that would demonstrate the links of several of the accused with businessmen or officials of the macrismo, which were never even mentioned during the process.

Another axis of the speech was the media complicity of the traditional and anti-Peronist press that investigates or handles judicial cases with double standards to protect the macrismo.

As an example, she cited the case of José López, the former Secretary of Public Works who in 2016 starred in one of the most important corruption scandals in the country, when videos were broadcasted in which he was seen carrying bags with millions of dollars in cash to a convent

López was already sentenced for that case and, in addition, he is charged in the current trial against Fernández de Kirchner, who released transcripts of the former secretary’s closeness with Nicolás Caputo, a businessman whom Macri considered his «brother», and who never was not even called to testify.

«They never investigated the origin of the funds from José López’s bags because it belonged to you, the macristas», she said.