With signs that read “Enough of hate”, the protesters took over the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Casa Rosada, seat of the presidency, in one of the largest demonstrations in Buenos Aires in a long time.
Kirchner, leader of the center-left current of Peronism and twice president between 2007 and 2015, was attacked Thursday night by a man with a firearm that did not fire, amid growing polarization after a request of the Prosecutor’s Office to be sentenced to 12 years in prison and politically disqualified in a trial for alleged corruption.
“I am very scared to think that this shot would have come out, I don’t even want to imagine it,” Emilio Costagiomi, a 55-year-old programmer, told AFP. “I came so that we can accompany each other in this ugly moment, to hug Cristina and to get the thing off all sides, to calm her spirits,” he added.
Political analyst Carlos Fara believed that the main political parties will now try to “lower the waters.”
“This incident occurs after two weeks of high political tension. I don’t think there is anyone politically responsible for this, but climates are generated that cause these situations,” he told AFP.
The assassination attempt was repudiated by the main leaders of the opposition Together for Change (centre-right). On Saturday, Congress is scheduled to hold a special session.
Diego Reynoso, a political scientist at the University of San Andrés, considered that “there was already a level of verbal and symbolic violence, which now transferred to behavior, materialized.”
“This fact is a watershed,” Reynoso told AFP. In recent years “political violence had never been a problem in Argentina. It is breaking a civic and democratic consensus that we had, and it is unfortunate”.
Pope Francis, former archbishop of Buenos Aires, expressed his “solidarity and closeness at this delicate moment” to his compatriot and said he prays that “social harmony and respect for democratic values always prevail.”
The United States “strongly condemned the assassination attempt” and expressed its support “for the Argentine government and people in rejecting violence and hatred,” according to a message from Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Twitter.
– In court –
Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti and prosecutor Carlos Rivolo, in charge of the investigation labeled as attempted aggravated homicide, took this Friday the first statements to Kirchner and a series of witnesses, police officers and custodians.
The detainee, named Fernando André Sabag Montiel, 35, is of Brazilian nationality, with an Argentine mother and a Chilean father. He has lived in Argentina since 1993. He had been arrested on March 17, 2021 for carrying a knife, but later the case was closed. The man has a Nazi symbol tattooed on his elbow.
To attack the vice president, the man slipped in between the militants who every night since her sentence was requested wait for her at the door of her house to support her. Kirchner’s own supporters subdued the attacker who placed a Bersa 380 pistol a few centimeters from his face.
Kirchner, 69, as loved by his followers within Peronism as detested by opposition sectors, continues to have great influence and power in Argentina, seven years after leaving the presidency and one before the 2023 elections, about which he still He has not shown his intentions.
On Twitter, the terms “#NoLesCreoNada”, “#OperetaK” and “#CFKSeVictimiza” were a trend this Friday. Cecilia Rossi, a 57-year-old resident of the block where Kirchner lives, considered that she “is all a clown who is covering up serious things that are happening in the country,” in statements to AFP.
– Brief greeting –
Kirchner was not aware of the attack at the time it was happening, according to his lawyer Gregorio Dalbón, who considered that the security scheme had failed. “It is not yet known if he was a lonely person or if he has to do with something else,” he added.
So far, the vice president has not made any statement. In the middle of the afternoon of this Friday, she left her home to an unknown place. Dressed in a pink sweater and sunglasses, she briefly waved at her followers.
Next week the defense arguments stage will begin in the trial against Kirchner and twelve other people. It is estimated that his turn will be towards the end of September.
The vice president has been dismissed in several cases, but she still faces five legal proceedings.
