Argentina: Anti-Government Protests

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, and other major cities to protest the government of President Alberto Fernandez, and Cristine Fernandez de Kirchner, the Vice-President under investigation for corruption. 

Alberto Fernandez called for peace and unity after enraged and restless protesters stormed Casa Rosada, the presidential palace on Saturday, July 9. Political dissidents took to the streets to criticize the government’s incapability to tackle inflation, which aggravated during the pandemic. Poverty levels have soared in recent years, and Argentinians grew impatient apropos to the corruption allegations in government institutions. 

The current Argentine economic crisis, comparable to that of 2001, has been marked as the nation’s worst economic recession in its recent history. In early December of 2001, the country’s government froze all USD bank accounts and limited the maximum ATM withdrawal to only 250 pesos, weekly, in a futile effort to combat the depletion of monetary liquidity. Years prior to these restrictions, the Argentine Currency Board sustained the “currency convertibility” policy that equaled the value of one peso to a dollar. At the time, the value of the peso did not match the reserves in the Central Bank. Loans became a systemic public policy with no pay-back plans. These policies led to the regression of the economy at a 23% unemployment rate. 

The ATM policy was the tipping point, and the events have since been referred to as “el Corralito”

By 2005, the country’s economy began recovering after finalizing the reimbursement to the IMF the fund it had loaned to fix the 2001 crisis

In 2018, the government of former president Mauricio Macri signed an IMF Stand-By Agreement  that summed up to $57 billion, with an accord to pay back the loan within five years. The fund was never invested in the nation’s economy as a considerable amount of the disbursed funds were sent to offshore accounts and other matters that were not for the stimulation of the economy.

The additional debt ignited another round of severe inflation that quickly caught up with Argentina once again, and ascended unemployment rates. 

The current president, Alberto Fernandez took office in 2019 and appointed former president Cristina Kirchner, who settled the 2005 IMF debt, as vice-president. The new presidency had little time to combat the new economic recession before the pandemic hit.

Poverty rates rapidly climbed to 40.6 percent.

The crushing national debt, extreme inflation of over 60%, and corruption precipitated the dissent movements. Protesters are asking the government to break ties with the IMF. They’ve also blamed the monetary institution for a lack of strict regulations with respect to loans, and advised the central bank to discontinue the debt payments. 

“Argentina is a capitalist semi-colony in the chains of the IMF. Today we are here to say we need a second independence. Argentina must break its ties with the IMF which is the Spanish Empire of the 21st century,”–Carlos Giordano, a socialist lawmaker.