Whether by action or omission, the figure of Cristina Fernández, currently vice president of Argentina, continues to stir up intense passions among her devoted supporters and her staunch rivals. The episode last Thursday in Buenos Aires in which an individual - who was arrested - approached her in the street, pointed a gun at her, pulled the trigger, apparently a couple of times, and no projectile came out of the barrel, has turned out to be the pretext for the umpteenth confrontation within a society that seems divided between those who support the neo-Peronist president and those who detest her.
The event on Thursday, which occurred in front of Fernández's home, is being investigated by a Buenos Aires trial court as an attempted homicide; however, the behavior of the vice president and her team of escorts after being held at gunpoint and detaining the suspect have triggered all kinds of theories among her detractors, including that the alleged frustrated assassination is a setup aimed precisely at creating extreme tension the political and social situation with the aim of influencing the accusatory process opened by the Prosecutor's Office against number two of the Argentine Executive for alleged corruption.
The public ministry accuses Fernández of various charges that would add up to 12 years in prison and disqualification for public office. In summary, various public awards are attributed to her by finger while she was president of Argentina between 2007 and 2015. Before being the main tenant of the Casa Rosada, she was the first lady of the country during the mandate of Héctor Kirchner, husband of the one who was widowed and it happened in office.
Last Thursday, the day that the Brazilian Fernando André Sabag Montiel, 35, a resident of Argentina for years, approached and pointed a gun at her, Cristina Fernández was carrying out a ritual that she has been repeating since last month: her followers carry support rallies outside his house in the Recoleta neighborhood, in what are known as vigils. She walks up to her supporters, greets them, gives hugs and kisses and signs autographs.
Precisely, the president said she did not realize that she had been threatened with a weapon a few centimeters from her face because she looked down to pick up a fallen book. That is what she, according to Argentine media, told the investigating judge, María Eugenia Capuchetti, in her statement about what happened.
One of the aspects that has aroused the most misgivings among his opponents is precisely Fernández's behavior after what appeared to be a serious threat against his life and the arrest of the suspect. The vice president continued to thank those gathered for her presence there, approaching many of them and even getting on the running board of her car to, standing out from the public, extend greetings to all those present. Such behavior is unheard of before any analyst with minimal knowledge of custody of personalities. It is an issue that, according to information coming from Argentina, will be subject to investigation and purge of responsibilities if it is found that the team of escorts acted negligently. His apparent passivity is one of the elements that support the theory that everything was a setup.
Speculation has reached such an extreme that it has been pointed out that the weapon used on Thursday by Sabag was simulated or even made of water, because in the video images of the events a liquid seems to come out of the barrel, which an expert in weapons quoted by the newspaper Clarín states that it may be some type of lubricant. The same newspaper publishes images of the gun on the ground and explains that if it did not fire no matter how much the Brazilian pulled the trigger, it was because there was no projectile lodged in the chamber and thus, no matter how much the trigger is pulled, no detonation occurs. some.
Alberto Fernández, president of Argentina, declared a holiday in the country on Friday on the occasion of the attack on his vice president, which facilitated the enormous presence of the public in the Plaza de Mayo. There, a mass rally was held in support of Cristina, as her faithful call her. The president accused certain media outlets of spreading “media hate”, which earned him the rejection of the Argentine Association of Journalistic Entities.
Yesterday, an extraordinary session of the Argentine Congress was held in which reproaches and bitter statements dominated the speeches, after groups of different persuasions approved a document rejecting the events of Thursday.
