"We will return stronger": Cristina Fernández de Kirchner speaks from house arrest

Buenos AiresSince the Argentine Supreme Court ratified on June 10 The six-year prison sentence and lifelong ban from holding public office for former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the bases of Peronism have raised the flag of lawfare or the instrumentalization of justice for political ends. Throughout the week, hundreds of people have gathered daily at the door of the former president's home in the Constitución neighborhood of Buenos Aires, where Kirchner will serve her sentence, having been granted house arrest given the former president's age. Javier Milei, who is expected to be elected in 2023, has come out onto the balcony every day to greet supporters who fervently defend her against what they consider a clear case of ideological persecution by the state. The court upheld the sentence just a week after Kirchner announced her return to active politics: she is planning the September elections.

This Wednesday, tens of thousands of people filled Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo. in a resounding show of support for the former president, who spoke via a recorded audio that was broadcast in the plaza.

Aside from tearing down the economic model of Milei's government – which "will fall, not only because it is unjust and inequitable, but fundamentally because it is unsustainable," he said – Kirchner has insisted up to three times that they will return (referring to personalism while: with more wisdom, followers became excited –. We have people, we have memory, we have history and we have a homeland." "We will return, a thousand times, as has been done since the depths of history," he insisted, and concluded: "The people, in the end, always return."

Peronism unites despite internal differences

If in recent months a certain lack of unity and internal direction was sensed, Peronist militants are now clear that imprisoning their leader will only strengthen the movement ahead of the upcoming elections: the national legislative elections will be held in October, which will determine the composition of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and governability, until now often based on presidential decrees. "This conviction only serves to reaffirm our identity, our love for our country and for Peronist doctrine," Carla Paz, a 43-year-old protester, told ARA, since "Cristina represents the dignity of the working class."

On the streets, many remember the 12 years of Kirchnerism—one government under the late Néstor Kirchner and two under Cristina, between 2003 and 2015—as "the best years" in Argentina's recent history. The concept of "dignity" for the working classes is repeated, enabling leisure time, savings, and a certain financial leeway for the majority, as well as a significant investment in education, with the creation of public universities throughout the country, and the granting of retirement benefits to thousands of people who hadn't contributed due to working in the informal sector; a measure that benefited, above all, women who had worked as housewives or domestic workers.

Activists are convinced that Kirchner's case is comparable to that of Lula da Silva in Brazil: also accused of corruption, he was imprisoned for 580 days only to have his sentence later overturned by the same courts. "Because he was imprisoned, Lula was excluded from the elections," says another protester, Miguel Ramírez, also 43. "But he won the next one." "They believe that with the legal war, Peronism will remain silent and lose, but, unfortunately for them, it will win and return," adds Pablo Monticelli, a 65-year-old retiree, who accuses the justice system of acting under the interests of the powers that be: "Why don't they speak out on the open cases of former President Mauricio?"

Constitutional lawyer Pedro Kesselman, who was part of the reform of the constitution in 1994, says he feels "ashamed" for a judiciary that "invents cases": "I have read the process and it is all a great construction," he says. Despite not declaring himself a Peronist, the jurist defends the backbone of Kirchnerist governments: "social justice," which he emphasizes "is a constitutional imposition since 1994." The highest law in the country "obliges Congress to enact economic laws that benefit the people" and, in this sense, Kesselman considers that the Milei government is currently, "violating the Constitution."