(MintPress) – Nearly 700,000 Argentinians took to the streets in an outpouring of popular protest against the Kirchner government last week, continuing an eruption of public opposition to the Argentine regime. Protesters from mostly middle and upper-middle class backgrounds lambasted Cristina de Kirchner, the Argentine president, for sluggish economic growth and a surge in violence.
Many of the public grievances are justified. However, some social critics and journalists believe that the protests have been secretly organized by a coalition of right-wing parties attempting to bring down the moderate Kirchner government, sometimes criticized as “Chavez light” in more conservative policy circles.
Unlike other Latin American states, Argentinian leadership has offered a more tepid opposition to the Washington consensus, a free market fundamentalism that exacerbates income inequalities and destroys critical welfare programs. While other regional leaders like Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa have taken a more militant stance against neoliberal capitalism, Argentina’s mixed economy offers a large private sector and increased government spending on programs helping impoverished citizens, a policy that has incensed right-wing opposition fearing a broadening of the public sector.
Protests against Kirchner
Protesters continue to take to the streets en masse, demanding that the government address rampant corruption and spiraling inflation. There is also a concern among citizens who believe that Kirchner could suspend constitutional term limits allowing President Kirchner to run again for the nation’s highest office in 2015.
Recent protests have seen a boisterous outpouring of Argentines banging pots and pans in Buenos Aires and other large cities decrying government corruption. Some protesters’ signs reportedly read, “Stop the wave of Argentines killed by crime,” and, “Enough with corruption.”
The Kirchner government was quick to deny accusations that the constitution would be amended to suspend term limits. While Kirchner won her re-election easily in elections last year, her popularity has slid in recent months following slow economic growth and higher rates of unemployment.
Kirchner also reignited the Falkland Islands debate with the U.K., a move that some say is a distraction from more pressing domestic economic issues.
The mass demonstrations appear to be organic in their composition, a spontaneous reaction to a set of unfavorable economic circumstances. However, some Argentine journalists, including Francesca Fiorentini believe that the current protests were actually organized by a right-wing coalition of political parties opposed to the populist platform.
The right wing-coalition of parties in Argentina represents a strong capitalistic platform, protecting middle and upper-middle class interests. Some within the opposition have speculated that Kirchner’s political alliance with Hugo Chavez could push the ruling coalition’s positions leftward in a stronger embrace of the Bolivarian economic philosophy.
Like the opposition in Venezuela, Kirchner faces a strong political opposition with strong funding from the country’s elite. There are no known ties between the rightist Argentine political opposition and the U.S. However, Washington has employed local allies previously in Chile to overthrow popularly elected leftist governments.
This [movement] is much more being driven by middle – even middle upper – class groups … It was supported by major right-leaning opposition parties … It appeared to be autonomously organised when actually it was fairly heavily backed by some of these right-leaning parties,” said Fiorentini.
Despite reaping the benefits of economic recovery under Nestor Kirchner, the current president’s late husband and preceding leader, the Argentinian middle class has turned against its president. However, the mass protests remain leaderless and there has not been a viable “alternative” put forward by any of the protesters.
This is reflected in recent opinion polls showing that 65 percent of Argentines disapprove of the right-wing opposition opposing the current government.
Echoes of the economic crisis 1999-2002
The president remains confident that most Argentinians will remain supportive because of the strong economic recovery following the economic crisis 1999-2002.
The financial collapse began in the late 1990s, evolving from a set of top-down market oriented reforms under the preceding military government. Unemployment skyrocketed to a staggering 18 percent while GDP was virtually flat.
The situation drew hundreds of thousands of citizens to the streets who directed their anger at banks and foreign corporations. Reliance upon massive loans from international lending institutions created a corrupt regime dependent upon foreign lending to support a faltering economy.
As a result, Nestor Kirchner was elected president in 2001, bringing a new era of economic policies that stressed self reliance and independence from the coercive control of the IMF. This included import substitution industrialization policies, injecting government funds into the private sector as a means to create more competitive industries in the global economy.
Succession of populist leadership
The revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara for many remains the most famous Argentinian known in communities outside Latin America. However Che never took the popular leftist revolution to his home country. Nestor and his wife Cristina are a far cry from the revolutionary idealism that drove Che and others in Latin America to fight for agrarian states controlled and run by workers.
However, the latest protest movement is likely a blip on the screen of an otherwise successful succession of political leadership that values Argentine sovereignty over American corporate hegemony.
Poverty has dropped from a high of 55 percent in 2003 to a less than 30 percent today. Argentines remember this history, and although there is room for economic growth and improvement in the overall standard of living, current policies offer the best way to continue growing the economy without increasing poverty and income inequality.