La Primera Piedra 2018 Here The first stone of 2018 was not thrown by a sinner. It was thrown by a society that finally decided to stop pretending that the emperor’s new foundation would ever support a home for the poor. But the irony was so dense it could be cut with a trowel. At the very moment she was invoking victimhood and promising a future built on social justice, federal courts in Buenos Aires were unsealing hundreds of pages of sworn testimony from former public works secretaries. These confessions detailed how, between 2003 and 2015, over $160 million in cash-filled suitcases and duffel bags had been routed from construction magnates to the former president’s inner circle. la primera piedra 2018 In 2018, that ritual was obliterated. On paper, it was a standard political event: a podium, a microphone, a block of cement, and a plaque. Fernández de Kirchner, flanked by loyal militants, delivered a fiery speech defending her administration’s legacy, attacking the "judicial mafia," and accusing the media of fabricating the corruption notebooks. The first stone of 2018 was not thrown by a sinner The event in question refers to a specific, infamous act of political corruption uncovered in Argentina, though its reverberations were felt from Madrid to Mexico City. The year 2018 became the annus horribilis for the "Notebooks Scandal" ( Causa de los Cuadernos ), which detailed a vast network of bribery involving former high-ranking officials and business leaders during the administrations of Néstor and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2003–2015). At the very moment she was invoking victimhood In the end, the only thing that ceremony built was a prison of public cynicism. And that prison’s cornerstone was laid in broad daylight, on a rainy morning, in the winter of our discontent. "He who casts the first stone should remember that foundations are meant to support, not to crush." — Anonymous, 2018.