( Spanish) — “The important thing is to enter the ballot,” said the vice president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in an extensive television interview conducted on Thursday night in which she confirmed that she will not be a candidate in the October presidential elections.
With this and several other definitions, Fernández de Kirchner returned to a television studio after almost six years without giving interviews. He appeared on the program Duro de Mar, which is broadcast by the C5N signal, with an official tendency. Her last appearance on local television had been before the 2017 elections, when she was seeking to be a senator.
In this interview, broadcast live and which lasted for just over an hour, the former president once again criticized the opposition, the Justice and especially the Supreme Court, which she accused of proscribing her. “I’m on probation, technically,” she said.
Although she was very critical of the International Monetary Fund and of the agreement with Argentina, which she defined as “the main issue” of the country and which she believes is necessary to review, she did support the current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, whom many point to as a likely candidate. President of Peronism: “He grabbed a hot potato,” he said.
Although she also launched some criticism against President Alberto Fernández, the vice president defended having chosen him as a candidate in 2019: “It was a good strategy,” she said, adding: “We had to ensure the triumph of Peronism.”
This interview was given two days after the extensive letter in which Fernández de Kirchner confirmed that she will not be a candidate in this year’s elections and which was published while the Congress of the Justicialist Party was taking place, where several leaders cheered for an eventual your application.
“I am not going to be a pet of power for any candidacy,” she stated in that text, ratifying her statements of December 6, 2022 after the verdict of the so-called “Roads” case, for which she was sentenced to six years in prison and disqualified. life to hold public office, in a decision that is not yet final and can be appealed.
Fernández de Kirchner was found guilty of fraudulent administration and prejudice to the public administration during a period that spanned her two presidencies (2007-2011 and 2011-2015), through the extraction of State funds for her personal benefit or that of a third party. The vice president has always denied the charges and considers the entire trial no longer a political persecution.
Although the vice president has immunity and cannot be detained, since this sentence is of first instance, it is not yet effective.
In that defense that he made from his office in Congress, he said, for the first time, that he would not be a candidate for any position, although the sentence did not prevent him from aspiring to a position. However, and despite what she said, since then the foundations of Kirchnerism have continued to encourage an eventual candidacy of hers.
When the interviewer, Pablo Duggan, asked her to clarify that she would not be a candidate, Fernández de Kirchner avoided saying so explicitly, but maintained: “What I published the other day is very clear” and that she appealed to the “text comprehension” of her followers. .
A woman walks past banners with a portrait of Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner reading “President” and inviting her supporters to a demonstration on May 25. (Photo by JUAN MABROMATA/AFP via Getty Images)
“I already said it on December 6, 2022. I am not going to be a pet of power for any candidacy. I have shown, like no one else, to privilege the collective project over personal location,” he had indicated in that statement that he spread on his networks social networks, where he also pointed out that “the ban” is not against a person, but “of Peronism”. There he added that his decision at that time was not “hasty or product of the moment” but “reasoned and thought out.”
In this sense, in the interview this Thursday, he related his proposal for an alleged ban as a candidate with the suspension of the elections in the provinces of Tucumán and San Juan by the Supreme Court: “A precautionary measure is enough to suspend me.”
However, she ratified her participation in the event to be held on May 25, which will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the arrival of Néstor Kirchner to the presidency, where, although she is not a candidate “for anything”, as she stated in December last year, is expected to provide some political definition ahead of the elections.
