Not a day goes by in Argentina without the media reporting on troubling developments for many members of former presidential administrations between 2003 and 2015. New allegations, charges, acts of corruption, and arrests are occurring with frequency for Kirchner-era political players, who are now more concerned with their legal dilemmas than with a future return to power.
The situation is so serious that, for many, the return to power is the only possibility of remaining in freedom. But such a scenario appears increasingly unlikely. Peronism in almost all of the country has abandoned Cristina, and appears to be planning to forge ahead without the once popular leader.
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Within hours of the arrest of media tycoon Cristóbal López, the Congressmen Martín Irurzun and Eduardo Farah requested the arrest of Cristina Kirchner, based on the opinion of Judge Claudio Bonadio, who signed the arrest warrant for the former president in Alberto Nisman case. Nisman was investigating a cover up of the attack of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) occurred in 1994, which was alleged to have been perpetrated by Iran. He was due to present his findings before Congress when he was found dead under suspicious circumstances in his apartment.
Given that Cristina Kirchner is a senator, the House is tasked with considering the lifting of her immunity. If the votes are obtained to life said immunity, the former president would join many other former leaders who presided over running Argentina for a decade. The list includes, nothing more and nothing less than her vice president, Amado Boudou, and her right hand man, the secretary of Legal and Technical, Carlos Zannini.
It should be noted that the AMIA case, which could lead to prison, is just one of the pending legal cases that threatens the freedom of the former president. Recently it has come to light that the accountant of the Kirchner family, Víctor Manzanares, who is already being detained for obstruction of justice in a money laundering case involving Cristina, acknowledged before the court that he modified accounting records with “liquid paper” on direct orders of the former president.
On the political level, the outlook is also negative for the former president. The Peronist governors, after parting ways with the ex-president, agreed to align with the ruling party in both houses of Congress to approve a series of reforms that Mauricio Macri needs to enact before the end of the year. The Argentine left is now headed by questionable figures such as the under the ex- minister of Economy Axel Kiciloff, who for many Argentines was the worse minister of economy in history, and the radical dissident Leopoldo Moreau who was recently questioned regarding severe physical injuries suffered by a Clarín journalist at the hands of Kirchner militants.
Kirchnerista forces do not have the votes to stop the new legislation promoted by Cambiemos, and lately key politicians have been missing critical votes. Daniel Scioli, the former governor of Buenos Aires and candidate for president who was defeated by Mauricio Macri, was absent from the vote on the pension reform. When his party went to look for him to vote on the legislation, it is alleged that he had disappeared, and turned off his cell phone.
