Although Argentina’s vice president was sentenced to six years in jail and a lifelong ban on holding public office, Cristina Kirchner did not leave the Buenos Aires courthouse in handcuffs Tuesday, and she may yet run to reclaim the presidency.

Mrs. Kirchner was convicted of aggravated fraud for leading a corruption scheme that diverted $1 billion of government funds through public works projects. Yet, she is expected to initiate a long list of appeals, and the judicial process could stretch out to the point that she is able to declare herself a candidate for the 2024 presidential elections.

For now, Mrs. Kirchner is allowed to keep her positions as vice president and head of the senate. In the Argentinian federal criminal procedure code a sentence takes effect only once the Supreme Court rejects the accused’s final appeal. This process could last for years 

Mrs. Kirchner became the first vice president in Argentina’s history to be convicted of corruption while in office. The verdict was announced by three judges, Andres Basso, Jorge Gorini, and Rodrigo Gimenez Uriburu, Tuesday afternoon. As part of the sentence, Mrs. Kirchner is expected to pay compensation of 84 billion Argentine pesos, or $500.6 million. 

A left-wing populist, Mrs. Kirchner assumed the country’s presidency in 2007 after the death of her husband Nestor, who became president in 2003. She lost an election in 2015 but after four years out of office returned as vice president. In that capacity, she is now widely seen as the power behind the current president, Alberto Fernandez. 

As soon as the unveiling of the sentence concluded, Mrs. Kirchner used her Twitter account to accuse the court system of being a “judicial mafia.”

“Just as we announced three years ago, the sentence has been written against me since the beginning,” Mrs. Kirchner said. She added that, in her eyes, the “true” sentence is unrelated to the monetary compensation or the six years in prison. “The true sentence is the lifelong ban on holding public office,” Mrs. Kirchner said. 

“Every political position that I accessed was always by popular vote. We won four governments with the last name Kirchner, in 2003, 2007, 2011, and we contributed to the 2019 victory,” Mrs. Kirchner said. “This is why they’re disqualifying me. This is why they’re condemning me.”

This was the introduction to what she had to say next: “I will not be a candidate,” Mrs. Kirchner said. “You can give the order to put me in jail then, as I will not be a candidate for president nor senator.” 

Yet, Mrs. Kirchner’s party has urged her to run for office in the 2024 elections. She is “the best candidate for the presidency,” the president of her FdT party, Maria Teresa Garcia, said last month. In a November speech to her supporters, Mrs. Kirchner said that she would do whatever it takes to “regain people’s joy.” 

As the judges dictated the sentence, demonstrations in support of the vice president emerged around the country, with some accusing the judges of “political prosecution” against Mrs. Kirchner. Some 200 people even waited outside the Buenos Aires courthouse and began removing the security fences around the building. 

A former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, a left-wing leader who was overthrown in 2019 for committing electoral fraud, showed his support for Mrs. Kirchner, tweeting, “the people and the truth are by your side, sister.”

At the same time, Argentina’s president said: “Today in Argentina, an innocent person has been convicted.”

Mrs. Kirchner is convicted of running a pyramid scheme between 2007 and 2015, when she allegedly awarded money from state coffers in the form of public contracts to cronies in the province of Santa Cruz. A friend of the Kirchners, Lazaro Baez, who since 2021 has been imprisoned following a conviction on money laundering charges, was assigned the head of the project. 

Mrs. Kirchner’s trial in the “Vialidad” case began in May 2019 but was interrupted by the pandemic. The chief prosecutor in the case, Diego Luciani, asked for a 12-year prison sentence, and for Mrs. Kirchner to be barred from ever holding public office again. He argued that during her time in office, corruption patterns worsened beyond what “unfortunately and sadly ever existed in the country.”

In addition to convicting Mrs. Kirchner, the judges also sentenced 13 people who were allegedly part of the “Vialidad” case, including a former secretary of public works, Jose Lopez, a former head of the National Highway Directorate, Nelson Periotti, and Mr. Baez, who has been in prison since 2021.