By Alejandra Garcia on September 20, 2022
Cristina Fernandez
Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a few days away from surviving death by good fortune, is fighting with all her strength against a fictitious corruption case conceived and built by the ultra-right wing of her country. Hatred, political persecution, and injustice took her to court this week, where she has been victorious so far.
Fernández’s lawyers began Monday the presentation of their defense arguments in the so-called “Road Case” (Caso Viales), where they reiterated the absence of evidence against the former president and currently the most popular politician in the country by far.
According to Página 12 newspaper, Carlos Alberto Beraldi and Ariel Llernovoy, the representatives of the Senate, began their presentations at 8:00 a.m. local time, a process that will last until Tuesday afternoon.
“I’ve said this before. They aren’t coming for me. They’re coming for all of you, for the salaries, for workers’ rights, for retirees, for our indebtedness – that’s what they’re after,” the 69-year-old Cristina told her supporters last month.
On Friday, the vice-president wants to plead in person during the third hearing. For that purpose, she will ask to be present as her own counsel and defend herself.
Cristina will seek to respond to the 12-year prison sentence requested by prosecutor Diego Luciani, who is accusing her of being the head of an illicit association that defrauded the State of millions of dollars.
On August 22, prosecutor Diego Luciani requested prison sentence, as well as her disqualification from holding public office for the rest of her life for alleged irregularities in the awarding of public works contracts in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, where she and her late husband, former President Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007), began their political careers.
The former head of state denounced the lack of evidence and the violations committed in the process, for which she requested to extend her statement, a petition that was rejected by the Court. After this decision, Fernandez chose to present her arguments in a live broadcast from her office in the Senate.
“Our justice system allows a few to violate all the rules. Nothing that the prosecutors said was proven. They were not accusations; it was a script and a pretty bad one,” she said.
Last week, the former president described the process against as “another example of political persecution” and recalled that, in 2015, a court in Santa Cruz dismissed the case for the non-existence of corruption or any other crime.
She also revealed the links between judges, prosecutors, businessmen, officials, and former neo liberal President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019).
This lawfare trial started based on a lie, using as an excuse the fierce political and media campaign unleashed by the ultra-right wing, which said without evidence that under her mandate there were charges for works that were not carried out. Newspapers such as Clarín and La Nación published articles about alleged overpricing and figures that nobody knows where they came from. It is all part of a great fiction.
“Nothing of what they said was proven. Moreover, it was verified that everything was exactly the other way around and we could see it from the testimonies of over 100 witnesses summoned by the Public Prosecutor’s Office,” she assured.
A big part of this charade reveals the fear and trepidation the right wing has for Cristina as the October 2023 presidential election looms in the background. The right wing neo liberals and the IMF are hoping this bogus charge will stick and get her out of the way because they know that if an election were to happen now Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner would win in a landslide against anyone.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English