The alliance between Peronism and Argentine social movements is in crisis. The deterioration of the economy and the internal fights that are bleeding the Casa Rosada daily corrode the main political support of the Government of Alberto Fernández: the street. The heterogeneous range of unions, picketers and organizations that until now have controlled the protests strike a balance between pressure from their bases, who ask for solutions, and agreements with power. The danger is not minor: social movements are the valve that takes pressure off the pot of crisis.
On Wednesday, organizations allied with the Government will march to the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to demand that the Government create a universal basic salary. On August 17, the Peronist unions of the CGT will do so, and they will gather in front of Congress. The call is “against inflation” and “the price makers”, that is, the companies. In all cases, the slogans are worthy of a juggler. They must protest against an unsustainable social situation, but without breaking with the Executive. They know that an escalation of social tension can put an end to a government that they consider their own, but which is now reeling as a result of its own inability to come to an agreement.
The dispute between Alberto Fernández and his vice president, Cristina Kirchner, ended two weeks ago with the resignation of Economy Minister Martín Guzmán, guarantor of the agreement signed with the IMF last January. Since then, everything has gotten worse. Inflation has skyrocketed – it is already over 60% year-on-year – and the peso has collapsed against the dollar in all informal markets. Kirchner gave his blessing to the new minister, Silvina Batakis, after two years of requesting Guzmán’s resignation for considering him an ally of the Fund.
Cornered by the crisis, Batakis promised fidelity to the IMF and launched an adjustment plan tougher than his predecessor: freezing state spending, more restrictions on the use of dollars to contain the flight of foreign exchange and price agreements to contain inflation. Krichnerism has not given her explicit support, but at least it does not humiliate her in public, as she did with Guzmán. A question of political survival. But the street is something else.
The Argentine social movements are children of the crisis of 2001, that of the corralito. When unemployment was raging and poverty exceeded 50%, those expelled from the system organized themselves into what they called “unemployed unions.” Those movements matured, grouped together and grew. Today they are a fundamental part of the Argentine social fabric, at the expense of the traditional unions that were born in the fifties of the last century. In addition to coordinating social assistance from the Government, they manage work cooperatives, schools and hundreds of kitchens in the poorest neighborhoods. They form a very heterogeneous mosaic, ranging from the extreme Trotskyist left to the most combative Peronism. And they have the key to governability: they can heat the street, but also control it.
When Peronism returned to power in 2019, Alberto Fernández added part of them to the Government. Leaders of the Evita Movement and Barrios de Pie joined the Ministry of Social Development. From there they distribute aid plans. Only Evita manages some 120,000. The commitment to the Government distanced them from the social movements of the extreme left and deepened the rift they already had with the Peronist unions. The CGT is the backbone of the system, but the change in work models, with more and more informal and fewer salaried workers, has taken away its prominence.
The balance of forces was always very fragile. And the internal fight in the Casa Rosada threatens to break it. A month ago, Cristina Kirchner protested at a rally for the role of the Evita Movement and Barrios de Pie in the Government in the Government. Both are integrated into Union of Workers of the Popular Economy (UTEP), where all the groups that live from self-employment and the informal economy are added. UTEP was born in 2019 to support Alberto Fernández. Kirchner saw there too much power concentrated and not very docile. For this reason, he asked the president to remove them from the Casa Rosada and return the management of social plans to provincial governors and local mayors. There, in the poor neighborhoods, the UTEP competes for the favor of the people with the ultra-Kirchnerist group La Cámpora.
“When Cristina spoke we were hurt and angry. There is a reality, there are sectors that do not want us”, says the deputy general secretary of UTEP and spokesperson for the Dario Santillán Popular Front, Dina Sánchez. “We are focused on the popular economy because the State has not been able to solve it from the public and private sides. Many of the compañeras are heads of households with several children. Within the popular economy they find a plate of food, work”, explains Sánchez.
UTEP celebrates the political wear and tear to which liberal President Mauricio Macri was subjected for four years. When the Frente de Todos came to power, with Fernández and Kirchner as helmsmen, they did not foresee that the internal tensions between the two would end up putting governability at risk. “Now we are realistic. In the Front of All do they all want us? No, but we are part of this government,” says Sánchez. That does not prevent them from taking to the streets to mark what they consider to be a policy according to their needs. The banner is the universal basic salary, a demand shared by UTEP and also by Kirchnerism.
For Alberto Fernández, it is a valid demand but impossible to finance in the context of fiscal deficit and lack of international reserves that weigh down his Administration. That is why he has chosen to, at least, control that the protest does not get out of hand. The Casa Rosada is resigned.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS América newsletter and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region.
#Argentine #crisis #cracks #relationship #social #movements #Peronism