The Conviction of Kirchner Shakes Argentine Politics

Argentina in an unfamiliar political dimension. Cristina Kirchner must decide by next Wednesday where she will serve her six-year house arrest, a benefit granted for being over 70 years old. The Supreme Court rejected all appeals from her defense on Tuesday and upheld the corruption conviction from two lower courts. Her imprisonment is as significant as the second part of the sentence: Kirchner has been banned for life from running for public office, meaning she can no longer participate in elections. However, she is far from being out of politics. The Court’s ruling has jolted a Peronism that was still reeling from defeat against Javier Milei in 2023. It is now in active resistance mode, a struggle that suits it well.

Kirchner likes to compare herself with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was imprisoned for 580 days in 2018 and 2019 for corruption charges that were annulled by the Federal Supreme Court in 2021. She also draws inspiration from Juan Domingo Perón, who was exiled and banned for 18 years after his overthrow in 1955. Perón maintained control over Argentine politics from Madrid, with politicians, union leaders, social leaders, intellectuals, and anyone hoping for his blessing visiting him in Puerta de Hierro and returning home with good news. It is expected that Kirchner will establish her own Puerta de Hierro in the province of Buenos Aires, her electoral stronghold, as she faces the fate of her party in the legislative elections in October.

Kirchner’s imprisonment strengthens her role as the leading figure in the internal struggle against Axel Kicillof, the governor of Buenos Aires province, for control of Peronism. She is, without the possibility of appeal, a victim of the “judicial party,” as she reiterated to the thousands of supporters who gathered first at the party headquarters and later at her home in the Constitución neighborhood, where her daughter lives. She stated that the conviction is a result of a political persecution orchestrated by “economic powers” that seek to control Argentina. She pointed more at the United States than at “that puppet who governs us,” referring to Javier Milei. “What they are preparing is how to dismantle the popular and political organization that will arise, because history shows that beyond the banning, the people will end up organizing in self-defense. The people always return,” she warned on Monday, when she was already resigned to the conviction against her in the Supreme Court.

The conviction in the well-known Vialidad case dates back to her years as president of Argentina, from 2007 to 2015. The judiciary found her guilty of harming the Argentine state by irregularly granting around fifty public works to a close friend, Lázaro Báez, in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, the birthplace of Kirchnerism. According to the courts, Báez rewarded her with “unduly obtained benefits” through shady dealings with “the former president’s family businesses.” With legal avenues in Argentina exhausted, Kirchner has only the option of taking her case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. If the courts fail her, politics remains an option.

The conviction had an immediate effect on a party that was divided and, above all, demobilized. Peronist governors who dislike Kirchner united in her support and condemned the Court’s ruling. Kicillof, once her political ally and now her main internal rival, canceled his entire agenda in Buenos Aires province to accompany her. “The effects of this are so substantial that one would expect it to have ramifications at all levels,” he said, indicating that if they want to stop the far-right of La Libertad Avanza, Milei’s party, they have no choice but to unite. Without Kirchner in the candidate pool, Kicillof will seek to leverage the weight of his administration in the country’s largest and richest province to shape the lists for national deputies and senators.

On Tuesday, Peronism was energized by the agitation the ruling produced on the streets. Thousands of people, mostly very young, gathered in front of Kirchner’s house in the capital. “Argentines, the JP is back!” they chanted, referring to the initials of the Peronist Youth, which many had thought was nearly extinct. Occasionally, Kirchner would appear on the balcony and greet the crowd. There were also spontaneous demonstrations in major cities across the country, such as Córdoba, Rosario, and La Plata. It is expected that sit-ins at the Philosophy and Letters and Social Sciences faculties of UBA will be replicated at other university campuses.

Kirchner has as many supporters as she has detractors. She is either idolized or deeply hated, but no one doubts that she has been the most influential political figure of the last 20 years. She served as a deputy, senator, two-time president, and vice president. Together with her husband, former president Néstor Kirchner, who died in 2010, she initiated a long period of hegemony for “leftist Peronism,” the counterpoint to the ultra-liberal Peronism represented by Menem in the 1990s. After Mauricio Macri’s interregnum in 2015, Kirchnerism returned to power in 2019 with Alberto Fernández. The president soon broke with Kirchner, his vice president, leading to disaster. The doors were left open for Milei’s far-right, who arrived at Casa Rosada proclaiming the death of “the caste” first and “the kukas” later.

“Justice. End,” celebrated Milei on his social media while on tour in Israel, just minutes after the court’s decision was made public. He then got sidetracked by the topic that currently obsesses him above all else: the press. “The Republic works and all the corrupt journalis$ts, accomplices of lying politic$ians, have been exposed in their operettas about the supposed pact of impunity,” he wrote. There was little more from the Casa Rosada. The Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francos, the least vociferous voice in the Cabinet, stated that it was “a sad moment to see a two-time president, former vice president, and senator sentenced to prison.”

Without Kirchner in the lineup, Milei loses the organizing principle of his electoral strategy. The “us” versus “them” narrative loses momentum and could cost him dearly in October. Although it is still too early to gauge its impact, if Peronism feels challenged, it might mobilize at the polls and reverse the decline in participation seen in recent provincial elections. Milei will continue to push for a nationalization of the legislative campaign, asserting that not only are deputies and senators being elected, but also two models of country: one “statist and impoverishing” and another guided by “heavenly forces” that will annihilate the state and turn Argentina into a power. He will face a Peronism that, perhaps, finds reasons to fight back.