As anticipated, Argentina’s three-man Supreme Court today upheld a lower court ruling that found former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner guilty of corruption, sentenced her to six years in jail, and imposed a lifetime ban on political activity or holding any political post. Although her lawyers in the original 2022 trial and in the subsequent 2024 appeal demolished the totally flimsy “evidence” presented by prosecutors, the Supreme Court ruled that the lawyers’ refutations of the charges were worthless and that “due process has been safeguarded and that the accused has received a sentence based on the law,” according to La Politíca Online.
It escaped no one that Fernández’s recent announcement that she will be a candidate for the Buenos Aires provincial legislature in September elections, in which she was projected to win 50% of the vote, was a factor in the Supreme Court’s ruling today. She and eight other defendants have been given five business days to appear at Buenos Aires’ main courthouse at Comodoro Py, where they will be arrested. Because she is over 70, by law she should be allowed to serve her sentence under house arrest, which she has requested, but don’t put it past vindictive elements in the corrupt justice system to try to keep her in jail permanently.
Fernández commented that “this Argentina that we are living in never ceases to surprise us. On top of the wage cap the government has imposed, the judicial party has now put a cap on the popular vote,” referring to the fact that people are denied the right to vote for her in legislative elections. The Peronist leadership and base are angry and mobilized.
