A decision by Argentina's Supreme Court signals the rise of Cristina Kirchner
The clearest signal that Cristina Kirchner has high chances of returning to the Pink House, the presidential palace of Argentina, did not come from the political class, but from the judiciary. The Supreme Court asked for an indictment against the former President for corruption on over a billion dollars of public works money.
With that move, the highest court in the land prevented the former president from sitting in a criminal court in the middle of her presidential campaign, an embarrassing image that embattled President Mauricio Macri, who is trying to ger reelected this year, intended to use until exhaustion.
The Supreme Court affirmed that it was going to review the claims of the former President, who accused the lower court of rejecting 90% of the evidence her defense presented. Since the maximum court has no deadlines, it is almost certain that its decision will be known after the elections.
"If what they wanted was a show, they will not get a show," said a Supreme Court Justice in obvious reference to the Macri government, who questioned the decision and said that "Argentines do not want impunity."
Macri's chief of staff Marcos Peña was more transparent. Peña accused the justices of being "ruled by the polls," an indirect way of admitting that Cristina Kirchner is winning the election.
That the Supreme Court dares to cross a central strategy of the reelection operation of Macri, can only be explained by looking at the polls. In every single poll, including those commissioned by the government, the former president appears to be winning by an increasingly larger margin in the first and the second round of the October elections.
Out of the five justices that make up the highest court in Argentina, only one rejected the decision. The dissenting vote came from Carlos Rosenkrantz, owner of one of the most important corporate law firms in Argentina and a very close friend of Macri. Before taking office, he was the main lawyer of Clarín, the biggest media conglomerate in the country, which waged an all-out conflict with the presidency when Cristina was in power. In Argentina, no one has any doubt that Cristina Kirchner will compete for a third term and in the last two weeks, she made two moves that all but confirmed that intention.
The former leftist president launched her autobiography "Sincerely" at the Buenos Aires Book Fair, in a gathering that turned into a massive event where she took the opportunity to send positive signals to Donald Trump, who is very much in favor of Macri's reelection.
Just last Tuesday, a few hours before the Supreme Court's ruling, Kirchner visited for the first time in 15 years the headquarters of the Peronist party (PJ), the party she has always caucused in, but with which she has always maintained a contentious relationship. The virtual candidate met with governors and mayors of the PJ and reiterated that, this time around, she is more open to joining all sectors of the party.
The polls that show a possible return to power of Cristina, aided by Macri's economic crisis, are so convincing that not few of the president allies maintain that he should decline his candidacy in favor of the more popular governor of Buenos Aires province, María Eugenia Vidal.
According to sources close to the administration, the subject would have been the cause of a strong discussion between Macri and Grupo Clarín's CEO Héctor Magnetto, who allegedly told him that it would be better for him to step down in favor of Governor Vidal.