Argentina: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announces her candidacy for Buenos Aires legislature
The former Argentine president will be a candidate for the third electoral section, which includes 19 municipalities in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, a Peronist stronghold that the political leader seeks to mobilize in view of the mid-term national legislative elections to be held in October.
Cristina Kirchner
Argentina's leftist former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (2007-2015) announced her candidacy for provincial legislator in Buenos Aires for the September local elections. She confirmed her candidacy during a television interview.
"I am going to be a candidate, as I had already said in several meetings (in private)," Kirchner told local channel C5N, and stressed the importance of the provincial elections for the opposition party she leads and which is the main opposition force to the current president, Javier Milei.
Kirchner will be a candidate for the third electoral section, which includes 19 municipalities of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, a Peronist stronghold that the political leader seeks to mobilize with a view to the mid-term national legislative elections to be held in October.
"Does anyone conceive that if Peronism doesn't do well in September, in the bastion of Peronism, we can do well in October?" asked Kirchner, 72, who also served as vice president under former President Alberto Fernandez (2019-2023).
The province of Buenos Aires, with 307,571 km2 and more than 17.5 million inhabitants, is Argentina's most populous and politically relevant region.
If elected, Kirchner will obtain parliamentary immunity, which could protect her from ongoing court cases, such as the Vialidad case, where she was sentenced in two instances to six years in prison and political disqualification for life for "fraudulent administration" in the awarding of road works during her presidency.
Kirchner's case
In May the chief Argentine prosecutor also appealed the conviction before the Court but to request that the former president also be convicted of the crime of "illicit association," which would raise her sentence to 12 years in prison.
September's candidacy will be Kirchner's first since she stepped down as vice-president in 2023.
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