Cristina Fernández, Vice President of Argentina, during an interview with the Brazilian press, in Buenos Aires.TÉLAM (TÉLAM)
Argentina holds its breath.
This Tuesday, December 6, a federal court will decide whether to convict or acquit Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in a corruption case.
On the eve of the ruling, the vice president repeated in an interview what she has already said before the judges: "There will be a conviction."
The former president is convinced that what she calls "the judicial party", supported by the right-wing opposition, she wants her out of the way.
The sentence, she said, “is written from December 2, 2019″, when she first spoke at the trial.
“For very simple reasons.
First: all my constitutional guarantees were violated.
Second: everything said is a lie.
Kirchner gave an interview to the Brazilian newspaper
Folha do São Paulo
.
He uploaded the hour-long video to his social networks in the early hours of Monday, to ensure the proper local impact.
He doesn't usually talk much to the press.
The last interview with an international media was in 2017, with EL PAÍS.
She was then running for senator.
Two years later she became vice president, after giving up the first place on the electoral ballot to her former chief of staff, Alberto Fernández.
The couple in power no longer speak to each other.
While the crisis worsens, Kirchner has focused on her legal problems, especially one in particular, the so-called "Road case."
The justice system accuses her of managing an illegal association that diverted 1,000 million dollars of public funds between 2007 and 2015, when she was president.
Accused in the plot are a former Minister of Planning, Julio de Vido;
Since the beginning of the trial, Kirchner maintained that the judges and the press have treated her as if she were already guilty, violating the principle of presumption of innocence.
"The image of a thief is built, accusing me of crimes against property when, in reality, when I finished my term, I had the same assets for which she had already been investigated three times."
He then recalled that a judge, Julián Ercolini, dismissed her and her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2015) in one of the enrichment cases that are now being tried.
“On the 6th they will dictate the sentence.
On the 7th, 'condemned Cristina' will appear on the front pages of the newspapers, said the
Folha do São Paulo
.
The vice president also spoke of Néstor Kirchner's relationship with Lázaro Baéz, a bank teller who became a multimillionaire overnight thanks to his contracts to build roads in Santa Cruz.
“They weren't partners at all,” she said, “you're a partner when you have a partnership contract.
He was a friend of Néstor's, like other business friends that Néstor had”.
Baez is among those charged.
He is already in jail, sentenced to 12 years in prison in a case for laundering money from corruption.
The Highways case against Kirchner investigates, precisely, where Baéz got the 60 million dollars that he laundered.
Prosecutors have asked for Báez another seven years in prison;
and 12 years for Cristina Kirchner.
The difference is that they considered the vice president the head of an illegal armed association in the Casa Rosada to commit crimes.
It is a great challenge to prove that a Cabinet of ministers, with the president at the helm, has as its main objective to enrich itself.
Kirchner's defense maintained during the trial that a figure created to persecute drug trafficking mafias cannot be applied to a democratically elected government.
If the charge of illicit association falls, the charge of defrauding the State remains standing, which contemplates a penalty of up to six years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
Kirchner refers to that when he talks about a conviction.
In Kirchnerism they take for granted a sentence halfway between what the prosecutors requested and the acquittal requested by the Defense.
The vice president insisted on drawing a parallel between her situation and that of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, imprisoned for more than 500 days in Brazil for corruption.
“Here the
lawfare
[the use of the judiciary for judicial purposes] was confronted from the height of power.
It was a regional phenomenon.
The phenomenon of the 'judicial party' happened with Lula, with [Ecuadorian Rafael] Correa and it happens with me,” Kirchner said.
Kirchner will not go to jail.
She has privileges as vice president and her defense can appeal a sentence before the Supreme Court, a process that can take years.
But this Tuesday's sentence, whatever it may be, will change the Argentine political map.
Kirchner is, even with her ups and downs, the person with the most influence.
A sentence will agitate Peronism, although in a different way depending on her fidelity to "the boss", as they call her.
La Cámpora, the group led by her son Máximo de ella, has not called for demonstrations in front of the courts, as it did in the past, fearful of incidents.
Yes, smaller unions have done it, but without much mobilization power.
The president, Alberto Fernández, has hardly referred to the trial;
Kirchner did not name the president in his interview with
Folha do São Paulo.
If, on the other hand, Kirchner is acquitted, his figure will grow in the face of the 2023 elections. It will be bad news for the opposition, absorbed as it is in choosing a candidate that manages to neutralize the divisions that fracture it.
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