BUENOS AIRES   -   A man was arrested in Argen­tina on Thursday for pointing a gun at Vice President Cristina Kirchner, security minister Ani­bal Fernandez said.

Several television channels broadcast footage of the man aiming a gun at the vice presi­dent’s head from close range as she was getting out of the car that was taking her home in Buenos Aires.

Fernandez said police would open an investigation. “Now, the situation has to be ana­lyzed by our scientific people to evaluate the fingerprints and the capacity and propen­sity this person had,” he said

The gun did not go off as the man, who approached Kirch­ner as part of a crowd gather­ing around the politician to ask for her autograph, waved the weapon in her face. Local me­dia reported the suspect was a Brazilian national. Kirchner’s opponent party Together for Change condemned the attack.

“My absolute repudiation of the attack suffered by Cristina Kirchner, who fortunately was not injured. This very serious act requires an immediate and deep investigation by prosecu­tors and security forces,” Mau­ricio Macri, who was president from 2015 to 2019, tweeted. 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a strong Kirchner ally who has called the accusations against her a “farse,” also tweet­ed his support Thursday night.

“We send our solidar­ity to Vice President Cris­tina Kirchner in the face of the attack against her life,” he wrote. “We strenuously reject this act that sought to destabilize the peace of the our brother Argentine people. The great homeland is with you, comrade!” Hun­dreds of activists have gath­ered in recent days in front of the home of Kirchner, who is accused of fraudulently awarding public works con­tracts in her stronghold in Patagonia. Prosecutors have asked that the ex-president, who ruled from 2007 to 2015, face 12 years in jail and a life­time ban from politics.

“Nothing, absolutely noth­ing that they have said was proven,” Kirchner, a lawyer by trade who succeeded her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, as president, said last week. Kirchner, 69, is the Senate president and enjoys parlia­mentary immunity.

Even if convicted -- the ver­dict is expected at the end of the year -- she would not go to prison unless her sentence was ratified by the country’s Su­preme Court, or she loses her Senate seat at the next elec­tions at the end of 2023.