They went from the luxury and privilege that power gives to a humble dwelling of six square meters, two, without windows or comforts. From one day to the next they had to learn to manage the confinement, to wash their clothes and cook their food. But the former inmates K were able to maintain a condition that today gives them great benefits: loyalty.
After prison, they began to be reborn from their ashes. Some already hold public office. Others build politically from the plain and have even become informal advisers to Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Kirchner.
Of a score of former officials who were imprisoned during the macrismo, only Richard James between bars. In the midst of the government crisis, Amado Boudou, Carlos Zannini, Luis D’Elía and Julio de Vidoamong others, are finding solid ground for their relaunch.
RETURN
Carlos Zanini he spent 107 nights locked up. In 2018 he obtained his freedom in the trial for the alleged cover-up of the investigation of the AMIA attack and from there he returned to the inner circle of Kirchnerism. With Alberto Fernandez elected president, knew the place that would correspond to him: the Procurement of the National Treasury It fell like a ring on his finger. A place from which to administer power without raising the profile. Just what the “black monk”, the man who created the movement with Nestor Kirchner, always appreciated.
From the Attorney Zannini he accessed the operations board of legal cases: plug and unplug files at ease. In the first 500 days of his management, he resolved that double pension be paid to Christina and ruled to return retirement to Amado Boudoufor instance.
He also concentrated on Cause Mail, the one that worries you the most Mauricio Macri, and in the last days he asked the Supreme Court that he resolve “quickly” the appeal he raised, in the search to achieve the bankruptcy of the company. Paradoxes of politics, now he is the leader of let’s change who claims to be persecuted: “The first day he arrived at the offices, December 11, Zannini asked for that file,” protested the former president in an interview on TN.
They were not the only cases against Together for Change to which Zannini gave him impetus: complaint to macri and the former Economy officials for the loans of 44 billion dollars with the IMF and asked the Justice to authorize cutting the co-participation expenses of the City of Buenos Aires.
Unwavering loyalty has its price: the former Secretary of Legal and Technical of Cristina He is one of the few officials to whom no one from the ruling party has ever asked to resign. In addition, he placed his four children in the State: even the second, Franco, the macrismo had revoked the contract in the National Lottery for not having an “assigned function”, but he quickly found a new conchabo in the Judicial Council of CABA. There is full employment among Zannini. Boudou’s Rise is even more surprising. The former vice president, whose sentence was confirmed by the Court, went from being ostracized to advising La Cámpora and even being honored in the Senate.
Many of the arguments he makes boudou in his talks with the militancy or in his radio program they are later used in the communications of the organization he leads Maximo Kirchner and in the public arguments of their referents. Some of his ideas even came to fruition in the form of a bill. One of them was to search for undeclared assets abroad to meet debt payments: the idea, which gained strength in Peronism, entered Congress.
But that’s not all: the grouping of Maximum opened a basic unit in his honor: “Beloved Companion” it is called and it is in La Paternal.
after prison, boudou he found his revenge. He has an important limit: the prohibition to hold public office that is part of his sentence. But he insists to his lawyers to discuss it: “I would like this impossibility to be reverted”, he demanded of them.
FISSURE
Not all former inmates K they sought protection under Cristina’s wing. Luis D’Elía, for example, leaned towards the other side of power. The former picketer became one of the most vehement public defenders of Albertismeven paying the price of whipping the vice president and her son, once undisputed leaders for him.
D’Elia He spent about a thousand days in detention and as many others at home, until in August 2021 he was released. The fact did not go unnoticed: he cut the electronic anklet with a knife before a crowd and gave a speech.
Since then he has become an exegete of the President, whom he considers “an extremist of moderation” and a “good guy”. He was even greeted by Alberto Fernandez in the Quinta de Olivos. Not bad for one of the most battered leaders of the Kirchner administration.
With the same effervescence that at another time he defended Cristina, D’Elia today he criticizes her: he asked her not to “delarchive” Alberto and reproached him that in his “three years in prison for being a Kirchnerist, he never picked up the phone” to call him. She also lashed out at Máximo: “He does not have the density, stature and political volume of his father”, she crossed him.
Nor does he former Planning Minister Julio De Vido managed to return to take refuge under the wing of the vice. Although he is not as critical as D’Elía, he must look to his side to recompose the race, after having been imprisoned for the Tragedy of Eleven.
That is why he has just presented his own party together with Fernando Esteche, another former detainee K.
Although the worst moment seems to have passed for the leaders who had to frequently walk the corridors of Comodoro Py, there are cases that are still far from being closed. In fact, there are several oral trials about to begin: at this point in the management of Albert Fernandez, It is a worrying fact.
The representation of the prison continues to be a constant in Kirchnerism. The last to put the image of a penitentiary was the minister of Territorial Development, Jorge Ferraresi: “When this government ends, some of us are going to go to jail and others will go back to teaching at the university,” he victimized himself in a speech in his district, to which he could return as mayor after taking leave in 2020.
WORKERS
The Phoenix Bird phenomenon is not exclusive to politicians. The trade unionists closest to Kirchnerism are also working to rise from the ashes. Juan Pablo “Pata” Medina It is the most paradigmatic example. Accused of extortion, the former head of the UOCRA now awaiting trial in freedom. But he even had the luxury of placing himself in the role of victim, after certain irregularities of former officials of the government of María Eugenia Vidal and the businessmen who denounced him became known. The counter-cause he started, known as the Gestapo, turned him into an unlikely standard-bearer for Lawfare. The flamboyant vigilante still hasn’t managed to regain union power, but he keeps trying.
Who was the favorite trade unionist of Cristina Kirchner, Omar “The Horse” Suarez, reappeared in recent days in the public eye. She had lunch with another disgraced man, the former Minister of Health Ginés González García, in a restaurant in San Telmo and exposed himself to being photographed. The controversy flared up again: the former holder of the SOMU He has house arrest and should not move from his house.
After being detained, Suarez He appealed to the K manual of victimization: he even denounced in the media that the macrismo wanted to commit “a genocide.” “If they won the elections, they not only put us in jail, they killed us all,” he said some time ago.
Since leaving prison, the former head of the SOMU seeks to be reinstated as a member of his guild.
The case of Marcelo Balcedo transcended national sovereignty. Former head of SOEME, whose fleet of luxury cars became one of the most iconic images of corruption, went from accused to whistleblower. It is that he has just sued the Uruguayan State because “they made him lose a multimillion-dollar business.” He asks to be compensated with 22 million dollars for two planes that were confiscated in the neighboring country. Another emboldened trade unionist.
With nothing to lose, and in the midst of constant inmates in the Casa Rosada, former K prisoners returned to the ring. A troubled river, profit of the fishermen who showed loyalty even in the worst circumstances. They put up with being humiliated and ignored, even by their own colleagues, but once again they feel sheltered by the government. It is that power generates a certain addiction and they had been abstinent for a long time.
