IN the latest example of what has become to be known as “lawfare,” the leader of Argentina’s largest political party and former president of the Republic, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has been sentenced to six years in prison for alleged “fraudulent administration of public funds” and banned from ever holding public office.

Cristina, as she is almost universally referred to, was first convicted on December 6, 2022, and it was not until November 2024 that her appeal was heard and dismissed by the Court of Cassation. Following a further appeal to the Supreme Court, her sentence was confirmed on June 10 after a concerted right-wing media campaign demanding that her case be heard before the July cut-off date for registration to stand in the forthcoming Buenos Aires provincial elections where Cristina had declared her intention to be a candidate, thus gaining immunity from prosecution.

The Supreme Court’s decision provoked a furious reaction from both inside and outside Argentina. Brazilian President Lula da Silva, himself a previous victim of lawfare in 2019 when baseless charges were made against him to prevent him from becoming president, expressed his outrage and has pledged to visit Cristina as soon as he can. In a statement, his Workers Party said that she was the “worst victim of political violence and legal warfare” since the return of constitutional government in 1983.

Manuel Zelaya, former president and husband of current Honduran President Xiomara Castro, who was ousted in a 2009 coup, stated that there is a continental strategy to undermine popular leaders and that Cristina’s persecution is an affront to democracy and the Argentine people. Luisa Gonzalez, who recently lost the Ecuadorian presidential election in highly dubious circumstances, put it more bluntly: “Today, Argentinian democracy ceased to exist.” Other messages of support for Cristina came from, among others, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, another victim of lawfare, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and Bolivian President Luis Arce.

In Buenos Aires, the Supreme Court’s ruling prompted thousands of people to take to the streets, many of whom gathered outside Cristina’s apartment in the centre of the city to lend their support. The hearing to decide where she should serve her sentence was scheduled for June 18 in the Federal Tribunal, though that was quickly changed to a session behind closed doors on the day before, in anticipation of the mobilisation that would have accompanied the defendant on her trip to the court.

If the intention was to avoid pictures going around the world of pro-Cristina demonstrations, it failed miserably. Instead of accompanying her to the court, unions, human rights organisations, and other civil society actors called for a demonstration in the capital’s Plaza de Mayo on the 18th. Regardless of sustained harassment from the authorities who tried to prevent supporters’ buses from reaching the rally, nearly one million people flooded the streets in an incredible display of solidarity.

Comparisons were made with the huge protests of October 17, 1945, that secured the release of Domingo Peron from jail, a date that is still celebrated by Peronists every year. Unlike her predecessor, Cristina will not have to serve her time in jail. In spite of calls for her to be put in a common prison, the judges ruled that she would be put under house arrest, forced to wear an electronic ankle tag and forbidden to go out onto her balcony, so as to “not disturb the neighbours.”

It should be pointed out that not one woman over 70 years of age is imprisoned in Argentina, and Cristina is 72. Her defence had argued against the fitting of a tag, as there is no danger of her absconding owing to the presence of her own police guard, to which every ex-president is entitled, on duty 24 hours per day. According to the leader of the Socialist Workers Party/Left Front and lawyer, Myriam Bergman, the order to wear a tag was motivated by political spite.

She posted on social media that of the 498 members of the ex-military dictatorship under house arrest, only 16 per cent are forced to wear a tag. The reality is that the restrictions of the type imposed on Cristina are not the norm. There are numerous examples of murderers and torturers from the dictatorship serving life sentences under house arrest and still being able to receive visitors, go to the shops and lead almost normal lives.

The lifelong ban on being able to stand for political office has been called a threat to “democracy,” ie constitutional rule post-dictatorship, and being in violation of rights contained in international treaties that Argentina is a signatory to. In fact, Cristina is the third major political figure to be banned in under a century, the others being Hipolito Yrigoyen and Juan Peron himself, exiled after another violent military coup 70 years ago.

The massive turnout of June 18 demonstrates that Cristina is undoubtedly the most significant female figure in Argentinian politics since Peron’s wife Eva. However, that does not mean she is universally popular; far from it. In Argentina’s divided society, she arouses strong feelings from both her Peronist supporters and her detractors in what we in England sometimes refer to as the “Marmite effect.”

A poll taken after her sentencing, asking whether she was guilty as charged, resulted in a roughly 50-50 split. All too predictably, most of her supporters said that she was not guilty, and her detractors said that she was.

Guilty or not, some political analysts believe that the Establishment’s success in sidelining Cristina may turn out to be something of an own goal. Her sentencing and imprisonment have brought together all the warring factions of Peronism, who had hitherto spent more time fighting among themselves rather than concentrating on opposition to the extremist government of Javier Milei.

United, the Peronist movement is the most powerful political force in Argentina, and with the right candidates, may well consolidate its parliamentary position at the mid-term elections in spring. As for Milei himself, he was in Tel Aviv, offering unconditional support for Israeli genocide, on one of his many overseas trips, when the verdict was announced and merely commented that justice had been done. But had it?

At the instigation of then-president Macri in 2016, Judge Ercolini brought a case against Cristina for unlawfully conspiring to give a large contract for building and maintaining roads in the province of Santa Cruz to an old family friend, Lazaro Baez.

That Baez was the most obvious contractor to get the work, being based in Santa Cruz, and that Cristina was not involved in the awarding of the contract appears to have been largely ignored. When a national newspaper revealed that one of the judges and the prosecutor were personal friends of Macri and had played football with him at the presidential residence, Cristina asked for them to be recused, without success.

Two of the Supreme Court judges who rejected her appeal were appointed by Macri, who, before, during and after being president between 2015 and 2019, was involved in numerous misdemeanours, most notably the negotiation of the biggest loan in IMF history without a proper congressional process, and has never been prosecuted. It is beyond the scope of this article to make a detailed examination of the facts of the case, but, as often happens in Argentina, the final verdict will come from the streets.