protesters demand more help from the government against inflation

The growing social tension was evident this Thursday in Argentina when Peronist and left-wing organizations took to the streets of the capital demanding more state aid to counteract inflation.

Several groups cut off different points of Buenos Aires to then march through the main avenues in long columns towards the Plaza de Mayo, where the government house is located. They planned to stay there for several hours to present their demands.

The militants of these organizations, who have been multiplying their protests for months, demand a special bonus of about 20,000 pesos (about 148 dollars) to face the incessant rise in prices.

They also ask for an increase in the minimum wage and the improvement of the State’s labor programs so that they guarantee more jobs, better paid and with the same labor rights enjoyed by people employed in the formal sector.

The protesters also request a meeting with the Minister of Economy, Silvina Batakis, whose recent arrival in the government they view with suspicion considering that she will apply the adjustment required by the International Monetary Fund within the framework of the agreement signed in March to refinance a debt of 45,000 million of dollars.

Sebastián Martino, a referent of Barrios de Pie Libres del Sur and who marched in one of the columns with a banner that read “Let’s defeat the adjustment”, told AP that social unrest is becoming “seriously” worsened by rising prices, especially food, “the lack of work and because we can’t make ends meet.”

The militant lamented that the measures announced by the Economy Minister are aimed at cutting public spending instead of ensuring more state aid for those who require it. “He gave us a message: that the adjustment is for the people, for the teachers, for the doctors.”

Inflation was 5.3% in June and that accumulated in the first half of the year reached 36.2%. Economists estimate that by the end of the year it will reach at least 80%.

The government of Peronist President Alberto Fernández cannot find a way to stop the rise in prices, which has been accelerated in part by the war in Russia and Ukraine. Argentina is the second country in Latin America with the most inflation after Venezuela, which is hitting hard about 40% of the population submerged in poverty.

Until now, the price controls repeatedly applied by the government on food and other necessary items have not had an effect, which the ruling party attributes largely to speculative maneuvers.

Government spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti said that the Economy Minister “is working with businessmen to reconstitute the price formation chain” and called on speculators, whom she did not identify, not to “play with the table of the Argentines.”

The leaders of the organizations maintain that entire families and people who work go to eat in the soup kitchens, which have multiplied.

“It’s not enough for them to make ends meet… That’s why we need to be on the streets. And if (the government) continues with its plan, we are not going to leave the streets,” said Vilma Ibarra, leader of the Socialist Workers Movement, who also participated in the mobilization in Plaza de Mayo.

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