A court in Buenos Aires has sentenced Argentina's Vice President Cristina Kirchner to prison for corruption. In addition, the left-wing politician is to be excluded from public office. The 69-year-old speaks of a political conspiracy.
Argentine Vice President Cristina Kirchner has been sentenced to six years in prison in a corruption trial. The court found the 69-year-old guilty of misappropriation of public funds. The judges also banned her from holding public office for life. However, the ex-president (2007-2015) can still appeal against the first-instance verdict. It could therefore be years before a final judgment is reached. That is why Kirchner remains at large for the time being and could also run again in the presidential election next year.
Kirchner and her husband, ex-President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), who has died in the meantime, are said to have procured public contracts for a friendly contractor without a tender. According to the public prosecutor's office, his company received 80 percent of all public road construction contracts in Kirchner's home region of Santa Cruz. Part of the excessive construction costs later flowed back to the couple. As the leader of a criminal organization, the current vice president stole around a billion US dollars from the state. The allegations relate to the Kirchners' tenure at the head of state.
Kirchner rejected the allegations and accused the judiciary of investigating them for political reasons. "When I first spoke here, I said that the court was bending the law for political reasons. I think I was being generous there. In reality, it's a real firing squad," she said in her closing speech in the trial .
The left-wing Argentine government described the investigations against Kirchner as "lawfare" - a war with legal means. President Alberto Fernández supported his vice several times. "When politics takes hold in the courts, justice flees through the windows," he recently wrote on Twitter. On Monday, however, he himself called for investigations against several judges and prosecutors involved in the Kirchner case because of a joint trip to Patagonia with entrepreneurs.
Kirchner represents the left wing of the current governing coalition and is seen as the real power puller in Buenos Aires. Again and again she imposes her will on the government. Her followers, who often come from humble backgrounds, see Kirchner as the guarantor for the lavish social programs. The charismatic politician dominates the streets through social movements, trade unions and party groups such as the youth organization La Cámpora, which is loyal to her.
Hardly any other female politician in Argentina is as polarizing as Kirchner: as passionately as she is loved by her supporters, her opponents hate her just as passionately. Argentina's political landscape is highly polarized, and the so-called "grieta" (rift) between right and left runs through society as a whole.
After prosecutors had called for Kirchner to be jailed for 12 years, hundreds of her supporters camped out in front of her apartment in the elegant Recoleta district for days at the end of August. On September 1, she escaped an attempted attack when a man pointed a gun at her from close range, but it jammed.
