Argentina’s vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is one of the country’s public figures who arouses both adoration and hatred. This Thursday she has been the victim of an assassination attempt while a group of people waited for her at the door of her home to show her their support in response to the recent accusation by the Prosecutor’s Office, which requested that the vice president be sentenced to 12 years in prison and Disqualification from holding public office. The figure of Cristina Fernández “raises hatred and raises passions”, according to the opinion of the researcher of the Elcano Royal Institute, Rogelio Núñez, in statements to RTVE.es. “She is a figure that with her own behavior, with her own attitudes, with her own speech – often hurtful with the adversary and victimizer – has contributed to polarize Argentina,” says Núñez, who adds that “this does not justify the attack.” For the expert, the Argentine vice president “is a woman with a very long political career, with an undoubted charisma that has increased with the fact of being president and being the leader of Kirchnerism.” “I would say, without fear of being wrong, that she is the main political figure in Argentina,” he adds. 24 hours – Attempted assassination in Argentina: “Until yesterday it was unthinkable that something like this would happen” – Listen now Cristina Fernández, maker of presidentsCristina Fernández de Kirchner was born on February 19, 1953 in the capital of the province of Buenos Aires, La Plata . There she studied law, where she met Néstor Kirchner, whom she married in 1975. It was not until the end of 1980 that Cristina Fernández began her political career, first as a provincial deputy and then as a national deputy, while her husband rose through the ranks of the movement Peronist politician. In 1991, Néstor Kirchner was elected governor of Santa Cruz, a position he held for two terms with the support of his wife as a deputy, and in 2003 Kirchner assumed the Presidency in the midst of one of the worst economic and social crises from Argentina. At that time, Cristina Fernández was a senator in Congress and during her husband’s administration almost no decision was made in which she did not have a voice and a vote. Cristina Fernández succeeded her husband in 2007 as President, who died in 2010 due to a heart attack. This was a hard blow for Fernández de Kirchner with which she had to bear in the campaign for the presidential elections of 2011. The elections gave her a second term obtaining 54% of the votes and she became the first woman elected by the vote. popular in occupying the Casa Rosada. “Cristina has been in Argentine politics for decades. She has been president twice, her husband was president and she has been the central axis of the Peronist party, which is the party par excellence in Argentina”, affirms CIDOB senior researcher Anna Ayuso. The division in Argentina: hatred and passion for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner The ‘Kirchnerism’ represented by Fernández de Kirchner, whose problems with the Justice had already begun, lost the 2015 presidential elections, forcing him to leave the Casa Rosada to give it to the conservative Mauricio Macri. Four years later, after months without announcing whether she would present her candidacy for a third term, Cristina Fernández surprised Argentina by offering Alberto Fernández, who was chief of staff for five of the 12 years of ‘Kirchnerism’, the leadership. In October 2019, the center-leftist Alberto Fernández was elected president and Fernández de Kirchner took over as vice president “It is true that she lost the elections in 2015, but then she becomes a kind of president-maker,” says Núñez. “In 2019 she realizes that she can’t win because she doesn’t give her the vote. She then makes a very good political move and allies herself with Alberto Fernández, who represents another trend within Peronism. She does it even with an Alberto Fernández who had been extremely critical of her, but she allies herself with him because he gives her what she does not have: the ability to reach the center voter, ”she assures. The “crack”: idolized and hated The current vice president of Argentina is among some public figures in the Latin American country who arouse both adoration and hatred. While some Argentines see her as a “mother” of the homeless, for others she is a corrupt populist. Fernández de Kirchner’s image has been tarnished for years by corruption cases. At the end of August, a prosecutor requested that the vice president be sentenced to 12 years in prison and disqualified from holding public office due to alleged irregularities in the award of public works when she was president of the nation between 2007 and 2015. Cristina Fernández responded by saying that her “sentence it was already written” and that there is no evidence against her. “Cristina Fernández has cultivated a lot of populism, the figure of Evita, the widow dedicated to the poor… There is a sector that goes to death against her, but then there is a sector of Peronism that follows her because there are interests”, explains Ayuso, who affirms that the vice president enjoys around 25% of popular support. Incidents at a protest in front of Cristina Fernández’s home According to the researcher, Cristina Fernández “has exercised very authoritarian power.” “She has had a very populist way of doing politics, authoritarian in some cases. Many people reject this personalism and authoritarianism when it comes to exercising power,” he clarifies. For his part, Núñez affirms that there is a “crack” in Argentina, which is “the division that the country is currently experiencing between Kirchnerists and anti-Kirchnerists.” . “This crack breaks families and means that many times families cannot talk about two issues: fundamentally soccer, but not politics either, because either you are a Kirchnerist or you are anti-Kirchnerist,” he adds. The possible wave of sympathy after the attack Cristina Fernández de Kirchner suffered an attack on Thursday when she returned to her home in the Recoleta neighborhood, in the city of Buenos Aires, after a session in the Senate. A group of people had come to the doors of her home to show her support for the vice president in response to the recent accusation by the Prosecutor’s Office. It was then that a man took out a 40-caliber pistol loaded with five bullets, pointed it at Cristina Fernández, pulled the trigger, but did not get the projectile to come out. Experts agree that the event “has served to have more public exposure and leave the entire issue of corruption in the background, ”according to Ayuso. “In that sense, she is going to favor him. There is not going to be so much talk about all the problems of corruption, but I think this has a short path”, indicates the CIDOB researcher. Thwarted assassination attempt on Cristina Fernández In this sense, the professor of International Relations at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), Susanne Gratius, points out that Cristina Fernández “always represents herself as the victim saying that she is harassed, that they are trying to remove her from over”. “This suits him,” he emphasizes. For his part, Rogelio Núñez emphasizes that “attacks usually favor politicians because, obviously, there is a kind of wave of support and a feeling of solidarity with the person who has been the victim of an attempted assassination.” attack, in this case.” The expert emphasizes that, despite the support it may receive, this event “will not make Justice or the population forget their problems with Justice” and that it will not “give them the opportunity to win the elections.” ”. “As much as the anti-Kirchnerists may feel embarrassed by what has happened, they dislike her political figure to such an extent that they would never vote for her or for anyone she appointed, as they did with Alberto Fernández,” he asserts. Huge tension in Argentina and the rest of Latin America The attack on the vice president of Argentina comes at a time of growing tension and social discontent in Latin America. The economic crisis, corruption and the increase in violence in that region have triggered polarization and political tensions. In Chile, this Thursday a group of unknown persons attacked Simón Boric, brother of the Chilean president. In this same country, a deputy member of the Republican Party punched another deputy from the Radical Social Democratic Party in the face. Meanwhile, in Brazil, in the first face-to-face presidential debate between the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, and the candidate Lula da Silva, both exchanged insults and accusations. “All this gives a little image of the enormous political tension that Latin America suffers”, indicates Núñez. “In reality, the whole world is experiencing an enormous process of polarization and political tension,” he adds. According to Ayuso, “over the last 10 or 12 years there has been a process of polarization within politics closely linked to the economic crisis and the corruption and all that has generated discontent.” “After what was called the ‘pink tide’, the coming to power of the leftist governments after the dictatorships, there was a process of turning to the left that also radicalizing because of the response given by the right-wing opposition. A process of radicalization on both sides, on the left and on the right that has led to this polarization”, indicates the expert. “The elections have been presented as elections between good and evil, both on the right and on the left, and this is accompanied by a great deal of social discontent,” she asserts.