Kirchner speaks before his followers, this Saturday.LUIS ROBAYO (AFP)
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner finally spoke at around 10 p.m., after a week of demonstrations of support outside her house.
On Monday, a federal prosecutor asked to sentence her to 12 years in prison for corruption and her faithful took to the streets.
This Saturday, after a week of restless nights for the residents of one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, the vigil of dozens of people turned into a mass gathering.
The decision of the Government of the capital, in opposition hands, to fence the surroundings ended in clashes with the police.
The situation calmed down when Kirchner took a microphone and asked her followers to return to her house.
"Let's go rest, it's been a long day," said the vice president.
When she was going back to her building, the pyrotechnics started.
Kirchner is accused of leading an illicit association created in order to enrich herself with public works during her two governments, between 2007 and 2015. "This is not a trial of Cristina Kirchner, it is a trial of Peronism," she replied on Tuesday, from his office in the Senate, and half the country took it as a call to his defense.
Hundreds of militants gathered at the corner of her building in Recoleta.
This Saturday, there were thousands.
At five in the afternoon, the first line of protesters tried to overturn the fences that prevented them from passing and 12 policemen were injured.
Security forces tried to quell the protests with pepper spray and a hydrant truck.
Four people were arrested and released.
“One thing is a demonstration and another very different thing is an organized plan for the occupation of public space.
The decision to put up fences was a magnet for the protesters who defend Cristina Kirchner.
A dozen marches called in Buenos Aires and its outskirts diverted their course and headed for the vice president's home.
The week-long tension finally spiraled out of control in the city's conservative stronghold.
The corner of Uruguay and Juncal streets has been part of the collective imagination of Argentina since December 9, 2015, the last night that Cristina Kirchner was president.
The apartment on a fifth floor with windows on both streets had belonged to her for decades, but that night, after her farewell in a massive act in front of the presidential palace, Argentines learned that the most hated and most loved woman in the country would live over there.
Only two out of 10 of her neighbors voted for her in the 2019 elections, and during this time there was never a shortage of cacerolazos or posters against her.
Stranger had been the calls of its militants, who that night in 2015 filled the neighborhood in response to a demonstration of repudiation against the new neighbor.
Kirchner had to desist from arriving and went to sleep at her daughter's house.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, while speaking to her supporters today, in Buenos Aires (Argentina).Prensa Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (EFE/Prensa Cristina Fernández de Kirchner)
The vigil outside Fernández de Kirchner's house turned into a mass gathering. LUIS ROBAYO (AFP)
Supporters of the vice president clashed with the police. LUIS ROBAYO (AFP)
A police vehicle was painted with slogans in favor of the vice president. MARIANA NEDELCU (REUTERS)
The local police intervened to repress the protesters, this Saturday. MARIANA NEDELCU (REUTERS)
The former president has been accused of leading an illicit association created in order to enrich herself with public works during her Government, between 2007 and 2015. Juan Ignacio Roncoroni (EFE)
This week, the request for condemnation returned its people to the streets.
After nights with dozens of people standing guard in Juncal and Uruguay, the militancy of the capital that had called for an act in Parque Lezama, in the south of the city, marched to Recoleta.
Police cut off traffic in a perimeter of at least 10 streets around the vice president's house, and militants filled the streets.
Recoleta is no longer the neighborhood of the richest in Buenos Aires, but it maintains its ancestry: among the neighbors of the vice president are the apostolic nunciature, three of the headquarters of Opus Dei, the palaces of the embassies of Brazil and France, hotels, restaurants and designer shops.
Like Josephina's, a French pastry cafe that this Saturday decided not to open.
In the square where she usually spreads out her tables,
A poster with a photograph of Cristina was hung on the sculpture of a Venus Cytherea, the goddess of love protected by bars in the center of the square.
The sign read: "Love is paid with love."
Silvia Machuca, 72, was closer to the concentration in Parque Lezama, but she did not hesitate to come to Recoleta.
“Cristina gave us everything, how can I not come?”, she asks herself.
“If they want to have her imprisoned in her house, we will be here.”
The organized groups arrived first and got as close as possible to the barricades.
While the police repressed the attempt to break a fence on Uruguay Street, in the rest of the neighborhood the blocking of the streets simulated a day of walking.
Families, couples, many young people drank mate, ate choripanes, bought a T-shirt with the image of Cristina Kirchner next to that of Eva Perón.
The song was born from some timid voice, and the rest joined briefly: "If they touch Cristina, what a mess it's going to be!".
"The quilombo is being here, where they don't allow us," explains Eliana Rodríguez, 35, the first university student in her family.
"Perhaps for those who do not know our poverty, who do not know our neighborhoods, the love for Cristina is exaggerated," says this systems engineer who comes from the city of Quilmes, in the southeast of the Buenos Aires outskirts.
"Cristina is democracy, she is love for the people, she is the policies that have given opportunities to my generation."
She arrived at noon and at five in the afternoon she was looking for a business that would sell her hot water to revive a mate.
“The neighbors say they don't have electricity, that they can't give me.
Nothing happens.
Today is pure joy”.
A few meters away, the police began to run down the street.
“Cristina!” shouted a man jumping a meter from the barricade.
"I love you! You don't know how much I love you!"
The police interrupted him and the shoving began.
“Sons of bitches!
They do not own the country,” the man continued as other protesters began to approach.
The police formed a cordon behind the barricades and began to break up the crowd.
Mariana Sosa, 65, had traveled with three of her friends from San Antonio de Padua, two hours by car from the west of Buenos Aires.
She came with the right words.
As the man began to threaten the police, she hugged him and calmly said, “No mate.
We came here for love.
Leave everything else to them."
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