PRO congresswoman Silvina Giudici filed a bill to prevent officials convicted of corruption offenses from being pardoned, two days after former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner started serving a six-year sentence for mismanagement of public funds.

Kirchner was also permanently barred from seeking public office.

“The goal is to ratify that in Argentina never again will officials be able to commit acts of corruption without being convicted and that the sentence they receive must be fully served,” Giudici said in a statement.

At least two Peronist leaders spoke about the possibility of Kirchner receiving a pardon from the upcoming president after the next presidential elections, scheduled for December 2027.

“Obviously, the first thing that whoever takes office in 2027 has to do is to pardon her and review the barring — Cristina’s rights must be restored,” said José Mayans, a national senator and vice-president of the Peronist Party. 

Unión por la Patria senator Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro said that the next candidate of Peronism should give back Kirchner her political rights. “For the coming government, the first condition is to free Cristina”, he said.

Giudici’s bill proposes to modify Law 27.156, which establishes who cannot be subject to pardons, amnesties and commutation of sentences.

The current law establishes that “the penalties or criminal proceedings on the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The bill proposes to include in the law crimes against the public administration and those related to acts of corruption.

Before her sentencing, Kirchner had sought to be elected a legislator in the upcoming Buenos Aires provincial elections. Following her conviction, that campaign came to an abrupt end, with sizable demonstrations around her home in Constitución ever since. 

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