An unknown person attacked Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with a pistol on Thursday night, although the official was unharmed as no shots were fired, authorities reported after learning of the attack through shocking television images.
The incident occurred at the entrance to Fernández de Kirchner’s house in Buenos Aires, where hundreds of protesters have been gathering for days to support the powerful center-left vice president in the midst of a trial for corruption.
“Cristina remains alive because, for a reason not yet technically confirmed, the weapon that had five bullets did not fire despite being triggered,” President Alberto Fernández revealed in a message to the Nation at the stroke of midnight.
“This event is extremely serious, it is the most serious that has happened since we have recovered democracy” in 1983, the president said. The image of the man pointing at Kirchner’s face at a very short distance was reproduced by various TV channels.
In the television images, a man could be seen pointing the gun at the Peronist Fernández de Kirchner in the middle of a crowd.
The pistol had five bullets but was not fired despite being triggered, explained President Fernández, who decreed a national holiday for Friday.
The Minister of Security, Aníbal Fernández, reported on the arrest of the man on Thursday night, when the also president of the Senate was returning from Parliament to her home in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
“Now the situation has to be analyzed by our people from the Scientific (police) to evaluate the traces and the capacity and disposition that this person had,” said the minister.
After the attack, hundreds of Argentines gathered in front of the house of Fernández de Kirchner, who governed Argentina for two periods between 2007 and 2015, in the center of Buenos Aires.
“Our vice president has been attacked and social peace has been altered. Argentina cannot waste another minute, it is necessary to banish violence and hatred from political and media discourse and from our life in society,” Fernández said.
“I have communicated with the judge investigating what happened. I have asked her to quickly clarify the responsibilities and the facts. Also to ensure the life of the accused who is in custody,” he added. The attacker would be a 35-year-old man of Brazilian nationality, according to the press.
A police spokesman told Reuters that an “armed” man was arrested in the area of the home and that “a weapon was found a few meters from the place”. He added that the attacker could be of Brazilian origin.
Leaders of the ruling party and the opposition, as well as politicians from other countries in the region, repudiated the act and expressed their solidarity with the charismatic Fernández de Kirchner, who arouses both love and hatred among Argentines.
The attack on the vice president was rejected by the opposition coalition Together for Change, which requested an investigation of the events, and also by the cabinet of ministers and several Latin American political leaders.
“My absolute repudiation of the attack suffered by Cristina Kirchner, which fortunately has not had consequences for the vice president. This very serious fact requires immediate and profound clarification by the justice system and the security forces,” the former president of the center wrote on Twitter. right Mauricio Macri (2015-19).
Brazil’s presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and former Bolivian President Evo Morales were some of the vice president’s political allies who expressed solidarity with her. Also the US ambassador to Argentina, Marc Stanley.
With information from AFP and Reuters