Argentina recoils after man’s apparent attempt to kill VP
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — As Argentina’s powerful Vice President Cristina Fernandez stepped from her car outside her apartment building and began shaking hands with a throng of a well-wishers, a man came forward with a gun, put it inches from her face and pulled the trigger.
The weapon apparently jammed.
Fernandez’s security detail seized the gunman and took him away, and the 69-year-old former president of Argentina appeared unhurt. But the apparent assassination attempt against the deeply divisive figure Thursday night shook Argentina — a country with a history of political violence — and further roiled its tumultuous political scene.
The gunman was identified as Fernando Andre Sabag Montiel, a 35-yearold street vendor and Brazilian citizen who has lived in Argentina since 1998 and had no criminal record, authorities said. He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
Authorities shed no light on a possible motive and were investigating whether he acted alone or was part of a larger plot.
“There is no confirmed hypothesis,” said a Security Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Everything is being investigated.”
The country’s political leaders quickly condemned the incident, with President Alberto Fernandez holding a late-night national broadcast to tell Argentines just how close the vice president came to being killed.
The president, who is not related to the vice president, said the man’s semiautomatic handgun was loaded
with five bullets but “didn’t fire even though the trigger was pulled.”
The president declared a national holiday Friday in the wake of what he called “the most serious incident since we recovered democracy” in 1983 after a military dictatorship.
Tens of thousands of people packed the streets surrounding Government House in downtown Buenos Aires in the afternoon to show their support for the vice president and denounce the incident.
Many of the demonstrators carried signs calling for peace and unity or expressing their love for Fernandez. Chants against the political opposition could also be heard.
No politician awakens more passion in Argentina than Fernandez, who has both fervent supporters and ardent detractors.
The left-of-center leader is on trial on corruption charges involving public works while she was president from 2007 to 2015. Some of her staunchest supporters had been gathering daily outside her apartment since Aug. 22, when a prosecutor called for a 12-year prison sentence for her and a ban on holding public office ever again.
She has vehemently denied all charges and cast herself as a victim of political
persecution.
“If you touch Cristina, what chaos we’ll make!” supporters had chanted.
In recent days, some of her allies charged that her detractors were trying to spark violence, with Security Minister Anibal Fernandez saying the opposition “is looking for someone to die on the street.”
Following Thursday’s incident, some of her supporters pointed the finger at the opposition for what they said was hateful speech that could push people toward violence.
Before the apparent attempt on her life, Fernandez had made a habit of leaving her apartment in the upscale Recoleta neighborhood of Argentina’s capital every day around noon, greeting supporters and signing autographs before getting in her vehicle to go to the Senate. She had a similar routine every evening.
Fernandez has been at the center stage of Argentine political life for almost two decades, revered by some for her left-leaning social welfare policies and reviled by others as corrupt and power-hungry.
She was the country’s charismatic first lady during President Nestor Kirchner’s 2003-07 administration, then succeeded her husband.