Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will carry out her six-year sentence for corruption under house arrest, a judge decided after Argentina’s top court upheld a previous ruling that also bars her from public office for life.
It had remained unclear until the judge’s ruling Tuesday whether Fernández de Kirchner, 72, would be allowed to serve time from home, given her age and local laws, or instead be sent to jail. The decision came a day earlier than expected as the former president’s supporters had planned protests for Wednesday outside the court and near her apartment, where she’ll be confined.
Judge Jorge Gorini ruled that Fernández de Kirchner will need to wear an electric monitoring device, as well as provide the court a list of her family members, security, doctors and lawyers who will be allowed to visit her at the property. Gorini said the former president must avoid behaviour that disrupts calm in the neighbourhood, but his ruling doesn’t detail if she can still speak on her balcony.
Fernández de Kirchner will be living in a Parisian-style building in her Buenos Aires neighborhood of Constitución, a less wealthy area than her former home in upscale Recoleta. Her exact property details remain unclear, but a four-bedroom apartment for sale in the same five-story building touts 15-foot ceilings, as well as a library, home office and outdoor patio. The 2,700-square-foot unit is listed for US$275,000.
As President Javier Milei enjoys a series of victories before midterm elections in October, Fernández de Kirchner will be confined to lead the Peronist party from her home. The former two-term president may attempt to evoke the image of Juan Domingo Perón, the founder of her political movement who was exiled for 18 years after a coup d’état in 1955. Perón became known for speaking to his supporters and giving interviews from his home in Madrid.
With Fernández de Kirchner unable to run for office, Milei’s path looks clear to successful election campaigns in Buenos Aires Province in September, and in the national Congress a month later. Inflation and poverty have fallen to multi-year lows, the libertarian president has scrapped unpopular currency controls and Argentina’s economy is expected to grow more than five percent this year after two years of contraction.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Fernández de Kirchner, who planned to be a candidate in the provincial vote, signified a paradigm shift in Argentina, where she and her family dominated politics for most of the past 20 years.
It also comes just weeks after municipal elections in Buenos Aires City that saw Milei’s candidates defeat those representing the party of former president Mauricio Macri, the other Argentine political titan opposed to Fernández de Kirchner.
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