A fabricated conviction
By María Josefina Arce
As has been constantly denounced by various sectors of Argentine society and by Vice-President Cristina Fernández herself, the sentence handed down against her in the last hours by the Federal Oral Court 2 was already defined in advance.
"Chronicle of a death foretold", as the title of the novel by Colombian Nobel Literature Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, could be described as the trial against the former president, who at all times rejected and denied the facts she was accused of.
Fernández was sentenced to six years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office, in the so-called Causa Vialidad for alleged irregularities in the awarding of 51 works in the province of Santa Cruz between 2003 and 2015.
In these three and a half years of process a whole plot was woven against Fernández. In fact, in a televised appearance, the Vice-President demonstrated the illicit ties between businessmen, officials, judges, prosecutors and politicians associated with former President Mauricio Macri.
She also denounced the lack of evidence against her, as well as the violations committed in the trial.
They want me imprisoned or dead, she said, denouncing the hate speeches, the assassination attempt on September 1 and the judicial persecution against her.
Last August, the Secretary of Human Rights had expressed her concern for the judicial harassment against Fernandez, a practice which, she pointed out, is promoted against political referents representing the popular sectors, while powerful sectors, which have allowed or endorsed the indebtedness of the country, generating poverty in the Argentine people, remain in impunity.
The sentence was preceded by the scandal of several chats between the investigating judge of the case, Julián Ercolini, and a group of magistrates, prosecutors, opposition politicians and big media businessmen who were trying to hide the invitation to a ranch in Patagonia, owned by an English tycoon, a personal friend of Macri.
By all means, the opposition has sought to remove the Vice President, a figure of great acceptance among the population, from the possibility of her running as a candidate for the presidential elections of 2023.
Throughout these three and a half years, various sectors of society rejected the process, plagued from the beginning by irregularities and bias. Cristina Fernandez has received broad support from a large part of the Argentines for whom she worked during her two terms as president.
The reality is that, as stated by the vice-president, her condemnation is also against a model of economic development and recognition of the rights of the people.
