Argentine prosecutors are seeking 12 years in prison and life disqualification for the vice-president with elections a year away. Peronism mobilises to condemn what they call "a political trial"

Argentina: uncertain future for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

photo_camera AFP/JUAN MABROMATA - Argentine prosecutors have called for Vice President Cristina Kirchner to be sentenced to 12 years in prison and disqualified for life from holding public office for alleged corruption during her two terms as president

The future of Kirchnerist populism is fading in Argentina with the recent request by the Public Prosecutor's Office for 12 years in prison and life disqualification from holding public office for vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner for being responsible for an alleged illegal scheme to defraud the state through the concession of public works in the province of Santa Cruz. "This is a trial of Peronism and popular governments," said Cristina Fernández de Kirchner when she spoke from her office in the Senate. 

The former president of the nation of Argentina is accused of defrauding more than 5.231 billion pesos, more than 39 million euros, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office. The accusation also implicates her late husband, Néstor Kirchner, and former officials such as ex-minister Julio de Vido, who has been asked to serve ten years in prison.

Protestas Argentina

However, the corruption allegations do not entirely dislodge the vice-president. Cristina de Kirchner has been immediately backed by the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, and her counterparts in Bolivia, Luis Arce; Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador; and Colombia, with the recently inaugurated Gustavo Petro. The four left-wing leaders have published a joint communiqué in which they express their "absolute rejection" of the prosecutor's request and describe it as a "judicial persecution" that obeys an interest in removing her from politics and "burying" her political ideas. 

"We express our strongest support for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and roundly condemn the strategies of judicial persecution to eliminate political opponents," the statement said.  

The vice-president's support is not only external. The vigorous Peronist movement expects to hold strong mobilisations in Buenos Aires in the coming hours, especially from the ruling coalition itself, the Frente de Todos. "If Cristina says that on October 17 we have to fill the streets, we will all go out on that day. And if she says that we have to do it this weekend, we will all go out too. It will be when she says so", said a Kirchnerist official. 

Kirchnerismo

The social leader and leader of the MILES party, Luis D'Elía, has also called on his activists to take to the streets to participate in a "huge picket" for an indefinite period of time in support of the former president. "I ask you to prepare for the battle against the oligarchy, the empire and the Court", D'Elía announces. 

But Kirchner's future is also complicated in the face of the next Argentine elections in 2023, which will decide the next occupant of the Casa Rosada, and from which she could be left out if she is not a candidate. For the time being, several of her rivals have run against the prosecution's accusation. Juntos por el Cambio has harshly criticised the vice-president's speech, which it considers a "media show" that "seeks a pact of impunity", although its leader, Mauricio Macri, has opted to distance himself from the accusation, saying that "we must let the justice system act".

Javier Milei

Other candidates such as Javier Milei, economist and leader of La Libertad Avanza, lashed out against Kirchner and valued the decision of the Prosecutor's Office as a step forward. "We are facing a turning point in the country's history, in which justice is finally beginning to impose itself on the corrupt". 

Argentina is in the midst of a deep economic crisis, enduring more than 80 per cent annual inflation, while the political crisis between the president, Alberto Fernández, and his vice-president, Cristina de Kirchner, who opposes him from the Senate, continues.  The future of Kirchnerism and Argentina depends on this procedure.

Coordinator America: José Antonio Sierra

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