Power to the People: Argentina’s Anti-Austerity Movement
Editor
COMMERCE AT A STANDSTILL
Fuelled by anti-government sentiment, anti-austerity protests and strikes have sporadically paralysed several sectors, including aviation, public transport and commercial shipping. During union strikes, transport and health services are suspended, and banks are closed.
Buenos Aires is regularly affected, as is the industrial belt bordering the Paraná River, including in Córdoba, Rosario and other commercial centres. In one of the largest protests in months, striking workers affiliated with various labour unions held a 24-hour strike on 30 May. 330 flights were cancelled as a result, and most public transportation services were suspended. Hospitals were forced to limit operations to emergency-response services. Similarly, Argentina’s maritime union – Sindicato de Obreros Marítimos Unidos – held a 72-hour strike in early June, suspending all commercial activities at the country’s main grain terminals at the Puerto General San Martin port complex in Santa Fe.
A GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT
Civil society has demonstrated that it is able to create severe disruptions to the economy through acts of civil unrest. Although Argentina’s anti-austerity movement is hardly an organised resistance, many demonstrations have nevertheless devolved into widespread, violent riots and clashes with riot-control police.
Public demonstrations often adopt a violent undertone. Some demonstrators have expressed anger through vandalism, malicious damage and stone-throwing. Security forces are equally forceful, typically responding to incidents of violence by dispersing crowds with water cannons, teargas and rubber bullets.
PROTESTS AND THE POLLS
Macri will seek re-election in October, but a June 2019 poll showed that Macri’s approval rate sits at just 27 percent. Pressure is mounting on the president to default to the populist social grants of his predecessors.
Macri will likely attempt to alleviate some austerity measures to increase his electoral appeal and ease protests prior to the election. But such measures will not halt ongoing demonstrations; Argentina’s opposition movement is comprised of more than anti-austerity protesters, and existing grievances over austerity measures are exacerbated by dissatisfaction with social reforms. Over the past few months demonstrators have also denounced perceived government corruption, police violence and a lack of progress on women’s rights.
Macri’s popularity has decreased along with citizens’ tolerance for austerity measures, prompting mass demonstrations against his economic policies.
POLITICAL (IN)STABILITY?
Anti-austerity protests show no signs of abating. Economists have suggested that that Argentina’s fiscal crisis will deepen in the second half of 2019, prompting the need for harsher reforms. The administration has reiterated its commitment to the structural economic changes that it hopes will reduce inflation in the long term. The Macri administration has signed a USD 56 billion bailout with the International Monetary Fund to aid economic recovery, cementing this commitment. However, protesters believe that the IMF’s reforms were the driver behind Argentina’s last economic crisis in 2001, prompting further discontent.
The country’s macroeconomic and political environment remains turbulent and prone to fluctuation. Ahead of the October elections, polls indicate that Argentinians’ main concerns are inflation (32.4%), utility rate increases (14.1%), corruption (13.8%) and unemployment (11.3%). These issues are not anticipated to improve in such a short timeframe. Precedent indicates that continued mass mobilisation at a grassroots level is the most likely manifestation of citizen dissatisfaction. As protests continue to draw a security crackdown, violent unrest will remain a pervasive threat.