ARGENTINA’S government condemned what it termed the “judicial and media persecution” of Vice-President Cristina Fernandez on Monday, as prosecutors asked a judge to jail her for 12 years and bar her from public office for life.

Ms Fernandez, who was president from 2007-15, is accused of irregularly awarding public contracts to a friend and ally while in office; she has denounced the case against her as “lawfare” waged by rightwingers to discredit left-wing politicians.

Prosecutor Diego Luciani claimed he had exposed “the biggest corruption manoeuvre that this country has ever known” and that the alleged fraud had cost the state about $1 billion (£840 million).

The accusation centres on 51 public works contracts awarded to Lazaro Baez in Santa Cruz province, some of which were never completed.

But Ms Fernandez said judges had the sentence against her “written and even signed” and that the entire trial had been political.

President Alberto Fernandez declared his solidarity with his deputy, while the government issued a statement saying the accusations against Ms Fernandez all relied on attributing intangible motives to ordinary government activity. 

The case “pitifully degrades the most elementary principles of modern law,” it stated, saying “justice has been put at the service of factional powers.”

“Lawfare,” — the use of politically motivated prosecutions to attack socialist politicians — is a widespread phenomenon in Latin America.

The now-overturned conviction of former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva that prevented him running against Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 is seen as a prominent example, as were the charges used to banish former Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa by his successor Lenin Moreno.