President Alberto Fernández maintained this Wednesday that it is “legally untenable” the accusation against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the case known as Vialidad and said that the former president is “innocent”, for which the request for 12 years in prison and lifelong disqualification from public office constitutes an “error loud”.
Fernandez stressed that he is “certain” that the vice president “is an innocent and honest woman” and assured that “she has not participated in anything” of what she is accused of in the case for alleged management of public works in Santa Cruz.
In dialogue with TN, the president said that it is “legally untenable” the imputation and warned that the accusation “was based on an unusual premise that said that she, as President, could not not know what was happening” with the Santa Cruz highway tenders.
For Fernandez, “This trial is a legal nonsense regarding Cristina” and noted that prosecutor Diego Luciani “said endless legal nonsense.”
Along these lines, he explained that a head of state is “very far from a public tender” of the type that is being investigated in the trial, and questioned whether prosecutors Luciani and Sergio Mola’s request for punishment considers that the former president “had responsibility of having sent a budget where the works that went to Santa Cruz were.
“Then all the deputies and senators are part of an illicit association?”, then reasoned the President by way of criticism, and in that sense he added: “Criminal Law cannot be worked as it is being worked in the Argentine federal Justice” .
Regarding the possibility of granting a pardon to the head of the Senate, he replied that Senator Oscar Parrilli issued a recent post on Twitter in which he remarked “for CFK neither pardon nor amnesty: justice” and stressed that this message “was retweeted by Cristina”, with which “the one who does not want to think about a pardon is Cristina”, he expanded.
Oscar Parrilli: “For CFK neither pardon nor amnesty: Justice” pic.twitter.com/8hfd16HvBR
— Oscar Parrilli (@OscarParrilli) August 24, 2022
“We shouldn’t be talking about pardon,” added later since, from a legal point of view, it is still “there is no conviction” against the vice president, beyond the fact that some media outlets “have managed to establish a media condemnation”, He reproached when referring even to the television signal to which he granted the interview.
“Several years ago there was a media action in which they wanted to put Cristina in the place where the prosecutor Luciani put her,” he reviewed.
“I am very sad to see what is happening in Justice”Fernandez stated that “the logic of escrache and insult cannot be tolerated anymore” and said that “I want to be close to Cristina because they are hurting her.”
“Neither Cristina nor I want to defend acts of corruption, the search for impunity does not unite us, the search for justice unites us,” he formulated.
Fernández aimed to “demand Argentina to have a truly independent judicial system with honest judges, and to know their assets”
According to the head of state, “the vehemence they put into investigating her, (Julio) De Vido, Lázaro Báez, is not the vehemence they put into investigating the others” and exemplified “prosecutors who go to play soccer at (Mauricio) Macri’s house, to play paddle tennis in Olivos”
“When I took office I said that I was going to end the basements of democracy, and I fulfilled that, because there is no State operator talking to judges or prosecutors, and it is one of the great prides I have,” he summarized.
Fernández, on the other hand, stated that “corruption has been an endemic evil”, said that he never stole and that he has the same assets or even less than before taking office and declared: “In my government I put all my efforts so that no one steals and today we have no questions”.
Asked about the call for acts and marches in support of the vice president, Alberto Fernández agreed and stated that the Frente de Todos has to “generate a great mobilization to defend democracy, human rights and demand an independent Justice.”
“I’m not worried about people taking to the streets,” said the president, anticipating that this Thursday he will speak with the “companions” of the National Council of the PJ, which he chairs, to define the steps to follow regarding the organization of a mobilization with those objectives, and finally remarked that “being on the street does not mean being violent”.
In addition, he stated that his main “political priority is to keep the Front of All united” and said that he will do “whatever he has to do to make that happen”, after which he stressed that the common objective of the official coalition is “to guarantee that in 2023 the same guys who left us a miserable country will not win again”.
He also assured that “he was never in a fight” with the Vice President, although they may have had “differences” and that “sometimes we are both vehement.”
Asked if he will stand for re-election, he clarified that it is “the last thing” on his mind, explaining: “My concern is to see how we begin to contain inflation and how we order the distribution of income. Those are the two priorities.”
He also criticized former president Mauricio Macri and pointed out that “he should be held accountable.”
“I don’t care what Macri does, I want him to explain in court why he did what he did with the debt, with the wind farms, with the Post Office, the accumulation of complaints about him that to this day Justice does not has investigated. What did he do with the tolls?he added, to state that “justice has not yet investigated.”
“I am the President, that was never under discussion,” he replied by ruling out “the political analysis that the media and consultants do” about his coexistence with the Vice President in the management of the FdT, and assured that he never thought of resigning: “I have a responsibility with the people, with the town”he reaffirmed.
In the economic aspect, he admitted that Martín Guzmán’s departure from the Ministry of Economy “generated a crisis because of the way he left,” and stressed that “the way he made the decision did Argentina a lot of harm” because, he reproached, “he warned when he had already done everything”.
Referring to the circumstances experienced after Guzmán’s resignation, he added: “We sought to recover an order that had been broken in the Government, we endured an impressive exchange rate run, motivated by some to weaken us as a Government, and we were able to overcome it,” valued.
Regarding the social climate, he indicated that the macroeconomy “is fine” and listed “a 6% economic growth in the first semester, the occupation of productive capacity between 65% and 70%, the creation of 1.2 million jobs and registered employment that is growing a lot,” although he admitted that “there is unresolved inflation that affects the income of many people who earn between 80,000 and 100,000 pesos.”
Finally, he recalled that “he always said” that the social leader Milagro Sala “did not have to endure the process in a state of detention”, and remarked that “we are all innocent until proven guilty”.
“Until today Milagro does not have a final sentence, her sentence is under review in the Supreme Court,” said the President, adding: “She has been detained for more than 7 years, and the crime she is accused of is fraudulent administration , which has a maximum of 6 years”.
