A man has been detained after he aimed a handgun at point-blank range at Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in an assassination attempt.

Argentina’s official news agency, Télam, identified the assailant as a Brazilian national Fernando Andre Sabag Montiel.

The Argentine Ministry of Security confirmed the weapon used in the incident was a .380 firearm with bullets inside.

Ms Fernández de Kirchner survived because the gun, loaded with five bullets, did not fire, President Alberto Fernández said in a televised address on Thursday evening. 

The incident occurred as Ms Fernández de Kirchner was with her supporters outside her Buenos Aires home at 9 pm on Thursday. The video, which has gone viral on social media, shows the gun pointed directly at Ms Fernández de Kirchner’s face. 

“A man pointed a firearm at her head and pulled the trigger,” the president said in a national broadcast. “Cristina is still alive because, for some reason yet to be confirmed, the gun … did not fire.”

Security minister Aníbal Fernández disclosed to local media channel C5N that a man had been detained. 

“A person who was identified by those who were close to him who had a gun was detained by (the vice-president’s) security personnel. They set him aside, found the weapon, and now it must be analysed,” Mr Fernández said.

Argentina’s economy minister, Sergio Massa, said in a tweet that the attempted shooting was an “attempted assassination.”

Meanwhile, the Argentine president has declared Friday a national holiday to allow people time to “express themselves in defence of life, democracy and in solidarity with our vice president.”

Ms Fernández de Kirchner is currently standing trial.

She has been accused of defrauding the state and of fraudulently awarding public works contracts in her stronghold in Patagonia when she was president between 2007 and 2015.

If convicted, prosecutors have asked that she face 12 years in prison and a lifetime ban from politics.

As Ms Fernández de Kirchner is the senate president, she is protected by parliamentary immunity and will not be imprisoned unless the country’s Supreme Court ratifies her sentence or she loses her senate seat at the next election in 2023.