Argentina’s vice president receives regional support amid calls for 12-year prison sentence

By Bala Chambers

LONDON (AA) - Argentina’s Vice President and former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has received strong backing from the presidents of Colombia, Bolivia and Mexico after an Argentine prosecutor requested a 12-year prison sentence for the left-wing politician on corruption charges.

On Monday, federal prosecutor Diego Luciani accused Kirchner, 69, of awarding fraudulent and overpriced public works contracts in the southern province of Santa Cruz during her two-term tenure as president from 2007-2015.

Many of the contracts allegedly benefitted close allies to the Kirchner family, with some already convicted of corruption.

Luciani also pushed for a "special life disqualification" from public office for Kirchner, who as vice president as well as president of the Senate has political immunity.

On Wednesday, Argentine President Alberto Fernández responded, expressing support for Kirchner, who remains a divisive figure in Argentina's political landscape -- adored by her supporters and loathed by her detractors.

"Together with Presidents López Obrador, Petro and Arce, we express our strongest support for Cristina and we strongly condemn the strategies of judicial persecution to eliminate political opponents," Fernández wrote on Twitter.

Fernández also shared a press release Wednesday on Twitter containing the signatures of Presidents Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Luis Arce of Bolivia.

“We, the undersigned, express our most absolute rejection of the unjustifiable judicial persecution that the current vice president of the Argentine Republic has been suffering,” the regional leaders said in the press release

According to the press release, "the aim of the persecution is to separate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from public, political and electoral life so as to bury the values and ideals that she represents, with the ultimate goal of implementing a neoliberal model."

It went on to claim "multiple legal irregularities and procedures" and "demanded" that the findings of a 2019 United Nations Special Rapporteur’s report, which questioned the independence of the magistrates and lawyers involved in several cases that the judiciary has opened against Kirchner since 2015 be taken into account.

On Tuesday, Kirchner vehemently denied the accusations against her in an hour-and-a-half long speech from her office in Congress and hit out at Argentina's judicial system.​​​​​​​

The sentence against Kirchner is expected to be known in months, although some say she could appeal to the higher courts, which would likely considerably extend the time it takes to reach a final verdict.