Cristina Kirchner heard the verdict in her Senate office: six years in prison and permanent removal from office for state fraud. The judges, meanwhile, acquitted them of the crime of unlawful association, which carries a penalty of up to 12 years. It was a verdict halfway between what prosecutors had requested and the acquittal his defense was demanding. Argentina waited for the verdict between resignation and euphoria. In Peronism, and much more so in its Kirchner version, they claim that they are about to complete a long strategy of persecution against the country’s most influential politician. The opposition, this justice, has acted on a leader to whom they attribute all sorts of evils. Kirchner won’t go to jail because she has privileges as vice president. You can also appeal your conviction to the Supreme Court, a process that takes years. Another thing is the political impact.
“This verdict is not a sentence according to the laws of the Basic Law or the Criminal Code,” said Kirchner minutes after the verdict was read out. “It’s a parallel between the state and the mafia, the judicial mafia,” he shot. And he ended his speech almost screaming, announcing to everyone’s surprise that he will not be a candidate in 2023. “I will not be a pet of power,” he said, staring into a camera. In December next year, he assured, he would have no more privileges and return to his native Patagonia, “because the real punishment is disqualification,” he denounced.
The verdict strained the delicate balance of power that maintains Peronism in the Casa Rosada today. During the more than three-year trial, Kirchner and Kirchnerism accused President Alberto Fernández of not doing enough to defend them in court. Now, with the president’s dwindling image, requests are multiplying from the most mobilized bases that Kirchner should run for president in 2023. Such a decision would undermine the aspirations of leaders who want to raise their heads above the former president.
Along the way was a Casa Rosada-led failed reform attempt to reduce power to the 12 federal judges of Comodoro Py, where most corruption cases fall. The vice president sees herself as the victim of a “judiciary party” that, with the momentum of the right, is using its power to oust progressive leaders. During this time, there was a lot of talk in Argentina about lawfare, i.e. using the judiciary for political purposes; There have been very harsh attacks on the Supreme Court and opposition politicians like former President Mauricio Macri. Artillery fire came from the other side as well.
Much of the press planted the idea that Kirchner was guilty, regardless of Tuesday’s verdict, a strategy that increased polarization to levels not seen since the return to democracy in 1983. Kirchnerism usually compares Kirchner’s trial to that of Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who spent more than 500 days in prison for corruption. The verdict was later overturned due to formal errors and Lula was free to run for president and return to the Planalto Palace after a narrow win over far-right Jair Bolsonaro.
In an advance on the verdict, due March 9, the court that sentenced Kirchner said in writing it had found certainty about “an extraordinary attempt at fraud against the financial interests of the national public administration.” According to prosecutor Diego Luciani, the sum total of amounts defrauded from state coffers during Kirchner’s two terms between 2007 and 2015 was $1,000 million. Throughout the process, Luciani uncovered irregularities in the awarding of 51 road works in the province of Santa Cruz, Patagonia’s bastion of Kirchnerism.
The businessman Lázaro Báez, a personal friend of former President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), who went from bank clerk to builder, was awarded the contract. According to data provided by prosecutors, the Báez companies were awarded contracts at an unusual speed: 29 days compared to an average of 210 for the other companies. Báez invoiced all the works, but almost half of them were unfinished and only one was adjusted to the original budget and did not require the disbursement of additional funds.
Kirchner protesters gather this Tuesday outside the Comodoro Py federal courts to await the reading of the verdict against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Buenos Aires.MATÍAS MARTÍN CAMPAYA (EFE)
Acquitted of the crime of tortious association
The judges determined that Kirchner received money in exchange for the benefits he gave to Báez. However, they considered the figure of the illegal association created to fight the drug trafficking mafia unproven. The former president’s defense maintained from day one that a Democratic president and his ministers do not come to power for the pleasure of committing crimes. The jurisprudence would also have been particularly uncomfortable for future administrations.
Some of the other defendants were also found guilty. Among them, Báez, who was already serving a 12-year sentence for money laundering, received a 6-year sentence. Former Public Works Minister José López, famous for being caught in the act trying to hide bags laden with dollars in a convent, received 6 years and permanent ban from holding public office. Four other defendants were acquitted, including former planning minister Julio de Vido.
On Tuesday, Peronism did not call for the large demonstrations of support that it normally organizes in support of Kirchner. The vice president had already expected a verdict the evening before; and the possibility of incident exhausted every mobilization. However, there was no shortage of a few smaller groups who gathered their people outside the Comodoro Py federal courts where the verdict was read.
“Let’s stop the coup! Let’s make this day a new October 17,” wrote Luis D’Elia, one of the organizers, in reference to the popular mobilization planted against the arrest of then-Colonel Juan Domingo Perón in 1945. This Tuesday contrasts with of the crowd that took to the streets on this historic date considered the founding day of Peronism.
Under the scorching sun, some protesters sang Peronist chants, but the majority silently awaited the reading of what they expected would be an unfavorable verdict. “Down with the judiciary mafia”, “Down with corrupt judges”, “Cowards, the judicial district stinks” read banners attached to the double security fence that the police erected in front of the courts.
The verdict follows a leaked chat in which the investigating judge of the case, Julián Ercolini, and a group of judges, prosecutors, opposition politicians and major media entrepreneurs are negotiating among themselves to cover up with lies a trip to Patagonia in October, at the English billionaire’s estate Joe Lewis. The messages gave wings to the conspiracy theory propagated by Kirchner. The trip “is the confirmation of a semi-governmental system in which the freedom of life of Argentines is decided. The judge family at their best. This is the system that works under the pompous figure of the judiciary,” Kirchner said on Tuesday after the verdict.
“On the 6th they will dictate the verdict. On the 7th, the “convicted Cristina” will appear on the front pages of the newspapers, she explained on Monday in an interview with Folha do São Paulo, the first she has given to an international media since the one she gave to EL PAÍS in 2017 There were no surprises.
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