Former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez — who with her late husband dominated the country’s politics for most of this century — was on Tuesday indicted on fraud and corruption charges involving huge public works projects. It was her second indictment since she left office last year.
Several members of her administration, including Julio de Vido, a former planning minister, and Jose Lopez, a former public works secretary, were also charged in the case. Lazaro Baez, a businessman long associated with Fernandez and her husband, former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner, was also charged. One of his companies, Austral Construcciones, was accused of being the beneficiary of corruption.
The former officials are accused of being part of an illegal association “that operated between at least May 8, 2003, and Dec. 9 last year, and was created to commit crimes to illegally and deliberately appropriate itself with funds that were assigned to road works,” according to the indictment.
The charges focus on 52 projects in the southern province of Santa Cruz, where Kirchner was governor for more than a decade until he became president in 2003.
Julian Ercolini, a federal judge, said that Baez’s company, which did not exist until shortly before Kirchner became president, was awarded contracts worth US$2.97 billion.
That included 15 percent surcharges above the original cost of the contracts, Ercolini added.
Fernandez, who was president for two terms between 2007 and last year, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, and characterizes her legal troubles as little more than political persecution by her successor and rival, Argentine President Mauricio Macri.
“Conspiracy was the crime that was created by de facto governments and used by all the dictatorships to persecute opposition leaders,” Fernandez wrote on Twitter after the indictment was announced.
Even while she was in office, she accused US interests and others of being part of a crusade to undermine leftist leaders in Latin America, including her.
She often compares her situation to that of former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached this year.
Fernandez was indicted in May on charges of manipulating Argentina’s Central Bank to bolster the Argentine peso. She is also under investigation in several other cases, many of which include Baez, who was detained in April in a separate case relating to money laundering.
Baez has denied all charges against him.
One of Fernandez’s lawyers, Gregorio Dalbon, wrote on Twitter that the latest indictment would be appealed.
De Vido characterized the charges as “a ruling that was made-to-measure for Macri’s political needs.”
Trials, given the slow pace of Argentina’s justice system, would most likely be a long way off.
The indictments were announced a day after Macri fired Argentine Minister of Finance Alfonso Prat-Gay, in what was the first Cabinet shake-up since he took office last year in the midst of a deep recession. The economy has taken longer to recover than he promised — economic activity plunged 4.7 percent in October, compared with the previous year, according to official figures released on Tuesday.
Some analysts say the latest indictment could help Macri’s center-right government make its case, even if implicitly, that it needs more time to revive the economy.
“In the context of a weak economy, the government needs to remind voters of who came before them and the inheritance they received,” said Marcelo Bermolen, a political science professor at Universidad Austral in Buenos Aires.
“Much of the strength of the government lies” in keeping Fernandez’s profile alive so it will have someone to blame, he said.
The corruption allegations swirling around Fernandez and her circle have provoked resentment among a public still smarting from the recession. In perhaps the most lurid episode, Lopez was caught in June at a convent outside Buenos Aires with a semi-automatic rifle, expensive watches and nearly US$9 million in cash.
Still, some observers suggest that the new indictment might actually bolster her support among the about 36 percent of the population that continues to have a positive image of the former president.
“This could be useful for her in terms of victimization, which she is already doing,” political analyst Sergio Berensztein said, adding that history was ultimately not on Fernandez’s side.
“Ex-presidents in Argentina have not been really successful in regaining power once they leave office,” he said.
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