The accident occurred when the Vice President was getting out of her car outside her home in Buenos Aires.
Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was threatened by a man with a gun, in what one of his cabinet colleagues described as an assassination attempt. She was not shot, and she was unhurt.
Security Minister Anibal Fernandez said a man was later arrested over the incident outside Kirchner’s home in Buenos Aires on Thursday.
Several television channels broadcast footage of the man, who was among the crowd around Kirchner, as she got out of her car and pointed a gun at the politician’s head at close range. Thousands have gathered in recent days to support the former president, who is in the midst of a corruption trial.
Fernandez said the police would open an investigation.
“Now, the situation must be analyzed by our scientific team to assess the fingerprints, ability and inclination of this person,” he said.
Local media reported that the suspect was a Brazilian citizen and appeared to be middle-aged.
Government and opposition leaders, as well as politicians from other Latin American countries, have expressed solidarity with Kirchner, who was a divisive political figure who served two terms as president between 2007 and 2015.
Her successor, Mauricio Macri, said the incident required “immediate and profound clarification by the justice system and security forces”.
The Brazilian Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the front-runner in the presidential elections in that country, scheduled for next month, also expressed his shock.
“Christina is the victim of a fascist criminal who does not know how to respect differences,” he said. “Thank God she survived unscathed.”
The current Argentine President Alberto Fernandez is supposed to address the country on television later on Thursday.
Kirchner, 69, is accused of fraudulently awarding public works contracts in her Patagonia stronghold. A verdict is expected by the end of the year.
“Nothing has ever been proven, absolutely nothing that they said,” Kirchner, the lawyer who succeeded her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, as president, said last week.
Kirchner is currently the President of the Senate and has parliamentary immunity.
Even if convicted, she will not go to prison unless the verdict is upheld by the country’s Supreme Court, or she loses her Senate seat at the next election at the end of 2023.
