On December 10, 2019, when Mauricio Macri handed over command of Argentina to President Alberto Fernández, the former president Cristina Kirchner Not only was she sworn in as the nation’s new vice president, she also achieved a record: being the first leader in history to have been elected to all national elective positions.
This Tuesday, Cristina continued to break records. To her positions as president, senator, deputy and conventional constituent, she added that of being the first person convicted of corruption while holding the vice presidency. The Federal Oral Court sentenced her to a sentence of six years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office when finding her guilty in the Highway case where she directed road works contracts to the companies of Lázaro Báez in Santa Cruz.
Predicted even by the convicted person herself, Tuesday’s sentence set a point of no return for Cristina Kirchner. And it is that achieving the innocence of which he boasts so much implies causing an institutional disaster equivalent to the coups d’état that marked the country for 50 years in the last century.
Sitting in her office in the Senate, at the end of the live broadcast of the sentence, the Argentine vice president, who is one of the most influential politicians in recent decades, decided to step aside for the 2023 elections.
“I am not going to be a candidate for anything, neither for president, nor for senator. My name is not going to be on any ballot, ”Cristina assured unexpectedly, because if she was re-elected she could shield herself from arrest. Especially when two other legal cases are on their way to oral trials similar to the one that just ended as part of a series.
(Also read: Who is Cristina Kirchner, the powerful political leader convicted in Argentina?)
However, the decision -both judicial and political-, which was taken by the opposition as a triumph, seems to be just a losing battle for an educated and shrewd political competitor who knows nothing about crises.
“Cristina continues to be the central figure in Argentine politics and she gave a shock by deciding not to participate in the elections next year, but she does this to avoid showing herself as a victim, so as not to give a sign of weakness. Even so, it is difficult to know if she is going to keep the threat from her, ”Juan Negri, a political analyst, tells this newspaper.
This daughter of a state employee and a bus driver knows at 69 what it means to have and regain power. Not for nothing, after becoming a widow, she was re-elected in 2011 with 54 percent of the votes and weathered controversial decisions such as the expropriation of YPF, the restriction on the purchase of dollars and even obscure chapters, including that of death, still today for to clarify, from the prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who accused her of covering up the Iranians suspected of committing the attack against a Jewish mutual in Buenos Aires in 1994.
(Also: Cristina Kirchner: what comes now after the sentence to 6 years in prison?)
He gave a shock when he decided not to participate in the elections next year, but he does this to avoid showing himself as a victim
Since Cristina Kichner was prosecuted for the first time in 2016, after completing her second term, in a case for alleged irregularities in operations with dollar futures contracts during her Presidency, a multitude of accusations have emerged.
Whether it was for alleged spurious deals with businessmen through Hotesur and Los Sauces, real estate companies owned by them; for leading a huge bribery collection network in the media cause of the notebooks; for the use of official planes to send newspapers to his residence in the south of the country or for hoarding historical documents that according to the judge should be in the hands of the State; Repeatedly, the widow of former President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) -who died in 2010 but also a suspect in some of the cases- has denied the accusations and assured that they respond to a judicial persecution promoted by the former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) together to the “hegemonic” media.
“The only thing they need is to accuse me of the death of Kennedy,” said the now vice president several years ago, who, full of capacity, avoided going to prison all this time despite the arrest warrants against her.
And it is that on a practical level, to be effective, Tuesday’s sentence will have to go through a long pilgrimage until it is, in a future that is not in sight near, endorsed or rejected by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Cristina’s judicial course, as her followers and detractors know her, follows her course.
(You can read: Lula and Argentine pro-government leaders show solidarity with Cristina Fernández)
a stable instability
“Paradoxically, the conviction does not change the political landscape much. First of all, because it was somewhat predictable. And then due to the fact that the sentence is not yet final, which allows Cristina (who has immunity until December 2023, when her term as vice president ends) not to go to jail and even run as a candidate the year that comes. In this sense, the impact of the decision is not so profound on the political logic of the country,” the analyst and academic at the Universidad del Rosario Matías Franchini explains to EL TIEMPO.
Hence, the vice president herself assured that “the true punishment is not jail, but the prohibition from holding public office.” “But I am not going to subject the political force that gave me the honor of being twice president and once vice president to be mistreated in an electoral period with a guilty candidate. I will not be a candidate, ”she insisted vehemently.
Of course, the impact of the resolution that was given after 14 years full of procedural resources to prevent the progress of the case resonates in the Peronism that sees a leader cornered by serious corruption convictions and strongly weakened by the failure of its government recipes.
(Keep reading: Cristina Kirchner condemned: the shock on the political board of Argentina)
The ruling finds a Cristina weakened and with less power
since in 2019 Cristina Kirchner returned to power with Alberto Fernández As president, the Justice has made several decisions that favored accused and/or imprisoned former Kirchner officials, while she was dismissed in various cases.
But, now, “the ruling finds a Cristina weakened and with less power.” “A phenomenon concealed in the weakness of the group, in the precariousness of the acting president and in a general political context in which an heir to power has not yet clearly emerged,” says the journalist Sergio Suppo in his analysis of the case for the newspaper The nation.
For Suppo, although the political impoverishment of the vice president is not new, the failure of the government’s management (which she tries to lead in a secondary role) means that she can offer less and less to the force she commands.
Today, the figures for the Argentine economic crisis are reminiscent of the times before the terrible default of 2001: 40 percent of families live below the poverty line and one in two children is malnourished. This while the Argentine peso continues to fall and inflation rises: +68 percent since January, but forecasts for the end of the year raise it to 90 percent.
And while Cristina compares herself to the revival of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (convicted and sent to jail for 580 days for the Odebrecht case), analysts have a hard time thinking that the Argentine vice president can have a path of political recovery like that of the now president-elect of Brazil.
(See also: Cristina Kirchner after corruption ruling: “I will not be a candidate for anything”)
“Cristina’s rejection levels are very deep (more than 60 percent). For that to happen, she should somehow become the last hope against an inept, corrupt and aggressive government against democracy, like the one embodied by Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. For now, this convergence of factors is very difficult, not only because Cristina -so she seems to deny it- is part of the current government, but also because she has never had the ability to broaden her coalition by forgiving her adversaries to incorporate them into her own structure”, she points out. Franchini.
But, given that, in the words of the expert, “Argentina is a factory of surprises”, for a professional chess player on the political board, such as Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, it would not be any difficulty to play a Zwischenzug offering such an unpleasant sacrifice for her opponents. that, as up to now, puts them in doubt and ends up spending a lot of time trying to calculate if it is worth it.
STEPHANY ECHAVARRÍA
INTERNATIONAL EDITOR
TIME
On Twitter @stephechavarría
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