Kawsachun News, August 22, 2022 — August 18 – Argentinian unions and social movements are marching today towards the National Congress to protest against runaway inflation and ‘speculators’.
The march has been organized by the two largest union confederations; CGT and CTA. Their joint statement said; “Our country demands firm commitments to mitigate the social injustice that is suffocating us today (..) political actors must abandon petty electoral confrontation for the benefit of individual interests. Inflation has reached intolerable levels and is pulverizing the purchasing power of workers.”
Sergio Palazzo, lawmaker for the ruling Frente de Todos (Front for All’) has backed the march and stated that “the intolerable action of the financial corporations have threatened the food rights of millions of Argentinians as well as the process of reactivating the productive economy”.
Argentina’s inflation in the last 12 months has reached 71%. 1 U.S. dollar now costs 135 Argentinian Pesos, in stark contrast to the final year of Cristina Kirchner’s presidency in which 1 USD cost just 8 Pesos.
Argentina’s economy has been in crisis ever since former President Mauricio Macri signed a multi-billion-dollar IMF deal, forcing the country to adopt neoliberal economic reforms. Since then the country has experienced runaway inflation, rising unemployment, and negative growth.
In 2019, his last year in office, 36.4% of the population was living below the poverty line, equivalent to 16 million people. 7.7 percent of the country was homeless, equivalent to 3.4 million Argentinians.