Supporters of Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner shout slogans in front of the Palace of Justice in Buenos Aires. /
Organizations and social movements take to the streets in support of the vice president, who faces 12 years in prison for an alleged corruption plot
The Argentine people rise up today against the verdict of the courts against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Hours before the Justice issues the ruling (around 5:30 p.m. local time), the politician’s followers have taken to the streets in different parts of the city of Buenos Aires to show their support in the case, in which she is accused along with twelve other accused of alleged corruption for public road works in Santa Cruz in his two periods at the helm of the country (2007-2015).
Under the slogan of “stop the coup and free Cristina,” the Miles party and the Land Housing and Habitat Federation led a mobilization to the courts in the morning. The objective with this is that “today is a new October 17,” said the leader of the call, Luis D’Elía’, referring to 1945, when Juan Domingo Perón (politician and founder of Peronism) was released after being arrested by military opponents after thousands of workers mobilized to demand his release.
The Association of State Workers, for its part, plans to hold a vigil to await the verdict and, in the event that a sentence is issued, mobilize and declare an active strike, in turn guaranteeing all essential services. This group has asked that “all possible instances of articulation with other unions and organizations of the popular field be exhausted in order to express, in a united way, the repudiation of any attempt to condemn the vice president in the judicial farce,” according to a statement. picked up by the Telam news agency. The Frente Patria Grande formation also plans to protest.
strong security device
Given the situation, and in order to avoid possible confrontations once the ruling is known, the authorities have applied a strong security device around the Palace of Justice and the courts of Comodoro Py. According to the newspaper ‘Clarín’, the operation consists of a triple fence with some 300 elements and around 200 security agents. There are also members of the Anti-Explosive Brigade of the Federal Police and Fire Brigade. Access is also restricted. In this way, magistrates and other judicial employees will enter the building from the rear.
Everything is a “political persecution”, affirm the followers of the vice president, stressing the same reason that Fernández assures to be acquitted of the well-known ‘Road case’, which can imply a sentence of up to 12 years in prison and his possible disqualification from occupying a public office. However, if a conviction is issued against Fernández, who as vice president enjoys immunity from arrest, the ruling will have to go through a long process until it is endorsed or rejected by the Supreme Court.
But for Kirchner everything has already been said and the worst is expected. After three and a half years of oral hearings, this Tuesday the trial concludes and she, as she announced yesterday, assumes that she will be sentenced. She sits on the defendant’s bench as an alleged participant in an illegal plot to defraud the State through the concession of public works in Santa Cruz, although she has always defended that she is the victim of “political persecution.” The Prosecutor’s Office estimates the amount defrauded at up to 5,321 million pesos (about 31 million euros).
The two video images show how the attacker points his pistol at Kirchner, a few meters from his face, last September.
Fernández has affirmed that the judges “appointed” by former President Mauricio Macri “protect him” and also those who tried to end her in early September, when she suffered an assassination attempt upon returning home after a session in Congress. and an individual pointed a gun at his face. Although the assailant did not fire a shot because the weapon jammed.
Despite the ruling he receives today, Kirchner has made it clear that he will continue in politics. “I will never give up my opinion and say what I think needs to be done to go out and build a better country for our people,” he asserts firmly. One of his lawyers, Gregorio Dalbón, posted on Twitter that “they will never be able to condemn his ideas.”