When a guy approached Fernández de Kirchner and pointed a gun at her while she was shaking hands with supporters,
A guy was detained after Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s vice president, was shot in the face with a revolver in what the government described as an apparent assassination attempt.
According to President Alberto Fernández, Fernández de Kirchner was only able to escape injury because the pistol, which was carrying five bullets, did not discharge.
Before 9 o’clock on Thursday night, Fernández de Kirchner was greeted by fans outside her home in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires. She appeared to survive the encounter uninjured.
In a public address, the president said that a man shot the woman after pointing a gun at her head. Because of an undetermined reason, the gun did not discharge, keeping Christina alive.
His plea for political leaders and the general public to denounce the occurrence came after he referred to it as “the most severe episode since we achieved democracy” in 1983.
A 35-year-old Brazilian male who has lived in Argentina since 1993 was detained at the site, according to the Argentine newspaper Clarin.
Television cameras caught the dramatic events outside Fernández de Kirchner’s residence, where supporters had gathered for days to protest against corruption allegations brought against her in court.
The video depicts a man rushing through the crowd of fans, aiming a pistol at Fernández de Kirchner’s face, and appearing to miss the target. Fernández de Kirchner was allegedly the target of the man’s gunpoint but no shots were fired. The country’s most prominent politician and two-term president of Argentina are seen reacting by concealing her face and squatting down. She allegedly suffered no harm.
Anibal Fernandez, the security minister, reported that a man had been arrested on C5N, a local cable news channel. “A person with a gun was apprehended by [the vice president’s] security staff after being recognized by others who knew him well. They separated him, discovered the weapon, and now it needs to be examined,” he stated.
The gun contained five rounds, according to Fernández, but “even with the trigger pulled, it didn’t shoot.” In order to give people time to “assert themselves in defense of life, democracy, and in solidarity with our vice-president,” he declared Friday a national holiday.
This year, primarily in response to criminal corruption allegations brought against Fernández de Kirchner, the degree of verbal abuse among opposition lawmakers in Argentina has increased drastically. Extreme opposition politicians have demanded that the vice president be given the death penalty once more.
“The incitement to hatred originating from many domains of political, media, and judicial power against the former president, only contributed to an environment of severe violence,” said a statement from Fernández de Kirchner’s Frente de Todos party following the incident.
Sergio Massa, the economy minister, described the incident as an “attempt at assassination.”
He wrote in a tweet, “When hate and violence triumph over the discussion, society is destroyed and things like this: attempted assassination” come about.
An immediate inquiry into this “very serious” attack, “which fortunately did not hurt the vice-president,” was demanded by former president Mauricio Macri.
According to Santiago Cafiero, Argentina’s foreign minister, “They wanted to assassinate [Fernández de Kirchner].” Since the restoration of democracy, this has been the most violent political act.
During her two tenures as president from 2007 to 2015, Fernández de Kirchner, a prominent and polarising figure in Argentina, was accused of favoring a close ally’s construction company for road contracts in her home province of Santa Cruz.
Instigating large protests across Argentina, including in front of Fernández de Kirchner’s Buenos Aires house, prosecutor Diego Luciani last week demanded a 12-year sentence for Fernández de Kirchner if she were found guilty. In response, she said that the accusations were made for political reasons and that she was about to face “a judicial-mediatic firing squad.”
In the general elections scheduled for next year, Fernández de Kirchner is anticipated to run for the Senate and potentially the presidency.
Brazilians were shocked to learn that the alleged perpetrator was a native of the country since worries had been rising that Jair Bolsonaro, the country’s far-right president, maybe the inspiration for some sort of violent incident.
The leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Bolsonaro will square off in the upcoming presidential election in Brazil. According to reports, Lula started donning a bulletproof jacket during rallies out of concern about a similar attack by right-wing radicals.
The Guardian reported last week that federal police officers were seen searching trash cans for explosives before Fernández de Kirchner supporter Lula gave a press conference to foreign media in So Paulo.
Bolsonaro famously urged fans to “machine-gun” his leftist rivals in 2018.
Outrage over the Buenos Aires tragedy spread throughout the area and beyond.
Cuba’s president, Miguel Dáz-Canel, described the incident as an “attempt at murder” and that his nation was “appalled.”
Former Bolivian ambassador to the UN Sacha Llorenti declared on Twitter that “hatred will not triumph.”
The attack, according to Gleisi Hoffmann, the leader of Brazil’s Workers’ party, was “the outcome of political violence and hate speech.”
Thank God she’s okay, Lula wrote, calling the attacker “a criminal fascist.”
The attempted assassination, according to Gabriel Boric Font, president of Chile, should be denounced by the entire continent.
He tweeted, “I express my solidarity to her, the administration, and the Argentine people. The road must always be one of discourse and ideas, never one of force and violence.
El intento de asesinato a la vicepresidenta de Argentina, Cristina Fernández, merece el repudio y condena de todo el continente. Mi solidaridad con ella, el Gobierno y el pueblo argentino. El camino siempre será el debate de ideas y el diálogo, nunca las armas ni la violencia.
— Gabriel Boric Font (@GabrielBoric) September 2, 2022
Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, reiterated the views and pledged his support to the vice president and all Argentinians.
He declared in a tweet that “hatred and violence will never win over democracy.”
Mi cariño y solidaridad, @CFKArgentina.
Nuestra rotunda condena a este intento de magnicidio y el apoyo a la vicepresidenta Cristina Fernández y a todo el pueblo argentino.
El odio y la violencia jamás vencerán a la democracia.
— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) September 2, 2022