Stories that caught our eye: November 14 to 21

ALBERTO CLOSE TO TRIAL

The City Federal Appeals Court has confirmed the trial of ex-president Alberto Fernández for the irregular allocation of the insurance contracts of state agencies during his presidency, prohibiting him from leaving the country. His former private secretary María Cantero and her husband Héctor Martínez Sosa, an insurance broker accused of being one of the main beneficiaries of the scheme by collecting commissions on almost 60 percent of the policies, also face trial along with five other defendants. Even after Decree 823/2021 obliged all state offices to take out their insurance Nación Seguros SA, President Fernández still forced them to pay juicy commissions to a handful of brokers. It is now up to prosecutor Carlos Rívolo to send the case to trial.

SENATORS RESISTED

The Senate’s Constitutional Affairs Committee on Wednesday scrutinised the credentials of the 24 senators elected last month, approving all but three of them. The roughest ride was experienced by outgoing deputy Lorena Villaverde, elected for La Libertad Avanza (LLA) in Río Negro, who ran into the objections of not only the eight Peronists sitting on the committee but also Juan Carlos Romero (Encuentro-Salta) and Pablo Blanco (Radical-Tierra del Fuego) due to her connections with Federico ‘Fred’ Machado recently extradited to the United States on drug-trafficking charges, although the last word on Villaverde’s future will come at the November 28 prep