“Enough hate!” proclaimed signs held up in Buenos Aires, in the most massive demonstration in the capital for a long time. The day had been declared a public holiday by President Alberto Fernandez, who described the attack against the former head of state (from 2007 to 2015) as “an act of enormous gravity, the most serious to have occurred since our country regained democracy” in 1983.
Thursday evening after 9:00 p.m., a man apparently acting alone pointed a handgun at Ms. Kirchner’s head, just a few meters away, as she mingled with well-wishers outside her home in Buenos Aires. According to television footage, the man appeared to pull the trigger without any shots going off.
“Cristina is alive, because for a reason that has not yet been technically confirmed, the weapon that contained five bullets did not fire although it was triggered,” said President Fernandez in a short speech. after the incident.
According to her lawyer Gregorio Dalbon, Ms. Kirchner “did not realize at the time of the presence of a weapon”.
Immediately subdued and arrested, the man was identified as Fernando André Sabag Montiel, 35, of Brazilian nationality but of Argentine mother and Chilean father, according to police sources quoted by the official Telam news agency. Living in Argentina since 1993, he was arrested in 2021 for carrying a knife.
– “Let the Argentines wake up” –
A man, “Mario”, presenting himself as his friend since adolescence, described him on the Telefe channel as a “mythomaniac”, a “marginal” lost since the death of his mother, and whose life “has often been influenced by alcohol. On his Instagram account, Fernando Sabag wore multiple changing looks, and many tattoos including a black sun, generally associated with Nazi groups.
The assassination attempt was immediately condemned by the entire Argentine political class.
Pope Francis, former archbishop of Buenos Aires, sent a message of “solidarity” and “closeness”, where he said he prayed that “social harmony and respect for democratic values always prevail”.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “shocked” by the assassination attempt which he “condemns”. The United States has “strongly condemned”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying on Twitter that Washington stands “with the government and people of Argentina in the rejection of violence and hatred”.
In Buenos Aires, the Plaza de Mayo, the historic theater of Argentina’s joys and anger, was black Friday with a compact crowd, as several avenues leading to it, at the call of the ruling coalition Frente de Todos (center -left) and affiliated movements.
“If the tocan has Cristina, that quilombo is going to armar!” (If they touch Cristina, what a mess is getting ready!), fetish song, resounded between bass drums and firecrackers in the rows, noisy and festive, of the supporters of Mrs. Kirchner, at 69 years old, an essential figure of the Argentine left.
In Santa Fe, Rosario, Cordoba, Tucuman and many other cities, local media reported marches, called by pro-government sectors.
– “Verbal violence” materialized –
“I come above all to support democracy and Cristina, let her know that we are here. And to see if the Argentines wake up, realize that we cannot take this path”, declared to the AFP in Buenos Aires, Adriana Spina, 61-year-old retiree.
“I am appalled at the idea that this shot could have gone off, I dare not imagine it”, whispered Emilio Costagiomi, a 55-year-old computer scientist, who came for Cristina but also “to calm things down, on all sides. “.
Revered by a fringe of the Peronist left, but a divisive politician hated by part of the opposition, Cristina Kirchner, president of the Senate, remains seven years after her departure from the presidency an influential actress in the country’s politics a year behind her. a presidential election for which it has not made its intentions known.
She is currently on trial for fraud and corruption, trial partly in virtual mode, which she does not attend. On August 22, 12 years in prison and life ineligibility were requested against her, in this case of public contract awards in her stronghold of Santa Cruz (south), during her two presidential terms.
Since the indictment, every evening hundreds of supporters gather outside the home of the vice-president to sing their support.
It was during one of these gatherings, however calm, that the attack took place, which for many Argentines in the street on Saturday, even accustomed to the strong polarization of their politics, marks a break.
“There was already a certain level of verbal and symbolic violence, but now it has materialized. It’s a turning point,” said Diego Reynoso, a political scientist at the University of San Andrés.
Cristina Kirchner, who has not spoken since the attack, left her home in the afternoon, greeting supporters for a few minutes, before leaving for an unknown destination.
