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On August 22, federal prosecutor Diego Luciani requested that the Argentine vice president be sentenced to 12 years in prison and barred for life from holding public office. He points to her allegedly having led a network of corruption in infrastructure works.
It is the first request for a conviction against Vice President Cristina Fernández and promises to further shake up an already turbulent political landscape in Argentina. Everything has its origin in the so-called ‘Road’ cause.
Within this case, alleged irregularities are investigated in the awards for the construction of highways in the southern province of Santa Cruz, considered the cradle of Kirchnerism.
Contracts to ‘favor’ a friend
The investigation stage was in charge of federal judge Julián Ercolini, who determined that about 85% of the road contracts in the province were awarded to businessman Lázaro Báez, a personal friend of the late former president Néstor Kirchner, who governed the country between 2003 and 2007. .
For this case, Fernández was prosecuted at the end of 2016 for alleged illicit association and aggravated fraudulent administration.
The prosecutor involved in the oral trial, Diego Luciani, assured on Monday August 22 that it has been proven that Fernández was the “boss” of an illicit association.
What is the case about?
Fernández, 69, is accused of leading the plot to award those 51 road public works contracts to Lázaro Báez, many of which were never completed or involved cost overruns.
Prosecutors say Báez, a former bank employee turned public works tycoon suddenly, created the company Austral Construcciones as a way to win state contracts with the help of his friends, the Kirchners.
Another 12 people are also being prosecuted in the case, including Báez and Julio De Vido, the minister who was in charge of Public Works during the Fernández administration.
“We are facing the greatest corruption maneuver this country has ever known,” said prosecutor Luciani in his closing arguments at the trial of Fernández, who was president of Argentina between 2007 and 2015, before becoming vice president in 2019.
The alleged fraud against the State cost the country’s coffers around one billion dollars, said Luciani, who also proposed seizing assets of the 13 defendants in this trial for an amount of 5,231 million pesos (about 36.4 million Dollars).
The former president has vehemently denied the charges against her in the three-year trial and has said that the judges already have the sentence against her “written and even signed.”
Thousands of people have demonstrated throughout this week to condemn the act, while several presidents of the Latin American left have shown their support for the senior official.
On this case, according to local media, a final ruling is expected by the end of the year, which could be appealed.
Argentina, a country with a high perception of corruption
Transparency International annually produces a world corruption perception index, in which zero is equivalent to a very corrupt country and 100 to a very transparent one.
In 2021, Argentina was ranked 96th out of 180 countries and its score was 38 out of 100, with a drop of 34 points compared to the previous year, which also made it the nation in the region that fell the most.
The agency stressed that in this country “interference in the judiciary by political authorities endangers the country’s independence and creates an impression of impunity.”
With EFE, Reuters and AP
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