ARGENTINA:
Farm Strike Exposes
Fernández’s Weak Flank
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES (IPS)
- The conflict with the
rural associations has
highlighted political
weaknesses of the new
Argentine government of
President Cristina
Fernández and shown that
economic recovery is
necessary but not
sufficient to remedy
latent social tensions.
In a surprisingly
virulent dispute,
farmers opposed to an
increase in taxes on
farm exports blocked
highways around the
country for two weeks,
keeping trucks with food
supplies from delivering
their cargo.
Middle-class
demonstrators
spontaneously took to
the streets in Buenos
Aires Thursday, banging
pots and pans in
solidarity with the
farmers and to protest
food shortages.
To complete the sense of
déjà vu, in a flashback
to the crisis that broke
out in late 2001 when
the government of
Fernando de la Rúa
(1999-2001) was brought
down amidst massive "cacerolazos"
or pot-and-pan banging
demonstrations, on
Thursday shops and
supermarkets were looted
in suburbs of Buenos
Aires and in the western
province of Mendoza,
where food shortages had
begun to be felt.
On Friday, the rural
associations agreed to
temporarily call off the
farm strike, to take
part in talks with
President Fernández, who
said she would not
negotiate until the
traffic blockades were
lifted. Talks will
continue on Monday.
Fernández succeeded her
husband, former
president Néstor
Kirchner (2003-2007), in
December.
How can a government
that boasts of achieving
economic growth
averaging more than
eight percent a year
since 2003, which
slashed unemployment and
poverty rates, built up
the foreign reserves and
renegotiated the
country’s crippling
foreign debt, be brought
to the edge of the abyss
so quickly by a conflict
with a single sector?
The president turned to
gender for an
explanation: "When I
took office on Dec. 10,
I said that because I am
a woman, everything
would be more difficult
for me, and I wasn’t
wrong," she said on
Thursday before
discussing key aspects
of the conflict with the
farmers.
But academics consulted
by IPS said that the
centre-left Fernández
and Kirchner
administrations have for
too long neglected
building a political
base -- a serious flaw
that they said becomes
evident at times of
crisis and competition
for scarce resources.
"This government
believes that power is
something to be
accumulated, instead of
using it as a tool to
forge links between
institutions. So, faced
with a growing conflict,
it has no support
networks beyond a small
group of people in the
executive branch who
take all the decisions,"
said political scientist
Germán Pérez.
Pérez, who coordinates
the Study Group on
Social Protest and
Collective Action (GEPSAC)
at the Gino Germani
Research Institute,
which is part of the
University of Buenos
Aires, said "Kirchner
had a historic
opportunity to take
steps towards political
reform when he became
president in 2003, but
instead decided to build
a narrow base by
concentrating power,
just as his
Justicialista (Peronist)
Party was built" in the
mid-20th century.
Pérez said the decision
that triggered the
dispute with the
farmers, the increase in
grain export taxes, is a
measure aimed at
redistributing income,
which also revived an
overdue debate about the
regulatory role of the
state. But the way the
government responded to
the conflict was a
mistake, he said.
"It was presented as a
fight between the city
and the countryside, or
between the people and
the ‘oligarchy’, and
such concepts no longer
appeal to Argentine
society, which is much
more diverse and plural
than the government
supposes. Party
loyalties no longer call
the tune," he said.
It would be better if
the export tax increases
were debated in
Congress, where regional
interests are
represented, and social
organisations have more
opportunity to
intervene, said Pérez.
But that didn’t happen.
The government launched
the measure
unilaterally, without
consultation, and came
up against more
rejection than support.
Kirchner and Fernández’s
lack of a grassroots
support base was obvious
over the past few days,
when social movements
coopted by the
government and therefore
no longer autonomous,
and lacking legitimacy
in the view of the
public, took to the
streets to defend the
measures affecting
farmers.
One of these was the
Land and Housing
Federation, led by Luis
D’Elía, who is now a
public employee.
"I am motivated only by
visceral hatred of the
f***ing oligarchy,"
D’Elía said on Thursday,
after clashing on the
streets with
demonstrators protesting
against the stance taken
by the government in
response to the farm
strike. "I hate the
whites in Recoleta (an
upscale Buenos Aires
neighbourhood) because
they think we are trash,
scum, and barbarians."
D’Elía stood behind the
president on Thursday
during her speech
calling on farmers to
call off their strike
and participate in talks
instead.
According to Maristella
Svampa, who has a degree
in philosophy and a
doctorate in social
sciences, "it’s very
difficult to be
progressive and find a
place where one can
express oneself" in the
present context.
Those who support the
tax increase on
agricultural exports do
not want to align
themselves with D’Elía
and his followers, or
with other social
movements that have lost
autonomy.
People who support
measures like the tax
increase on windfall
agricultural profits
"have no channels to
express this," and
instead people are
demonstrating against
the authoritarianism of
the government which
they cannot tolerate,
whatever their ideology,
said Svampa, the author
of "La sociedad
excluyente. Argentina
bajo el signo del
liberalismo" (Exclusive
Society: Argentina under
Neoliberalism).
"The urban, progressive
middle class had their
expectations raised when
Kirchner promised to
build an all-inclusive
centre-left movement,
but it has been
disappointed all these
years," and now it no
longer has political
representation, she
said.
Svampa said that the
people banging pots and
pans in the streets of
Buenos Aires "were a
heterogeneous group, and
many didn’t know much
about the farmers or the
agricultural policy, but
they have a culture of
protest with a
repertoire of reactions
which they use to
express discontent."
The repertoire includes
cacerolazos, roadblocks,
spontaneous
demonstrations, protest
marches and
neighbourhood
assemblies, which are
triggered whenever there
is a perceived need to
put limits on a
government, or express
discontent and
opposition.
"The president’s
blindness created this
backlash, but no
government today can
turn a deaf ear to the
voices on the street,"
she said.
|
