Amid the increase in infections due to the new coronavirus, thousands gathered in Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities to reject the management of President Alberto Fernández and his decision to extend the quarantine.
The so-called “Patriotic Flag”, which took place during the holiday for the 170th anniversary of the death of the liberator José de San Martín, encompassed various complaints, including insecurity, economic deterioration and government plans to reform justice to supposedly protect to the vice president and ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015) in the cases in which she is prosecuted for alleged corruption.
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In the protest, hundreds of motorists honked their car horns while holding signs that read “Enough of impunity”, “We are fed up with this dictatorship” and “This is the reform; I will make you president and you will clean the causes for me.” Alluding to the influence that the ex-president would have on Fernández.
María Riccheri, 61, told the AP that she went to the protest to demand freedom and that “Cristina Kirchner go to prison”, in addition to questioning the government for lacking an economic plan to overcome the crisis and criticizing the plans. of judicial reform, for which the government has a legal adviser who is the former president’s lawyer.
In turn, Ricardo Carpe, 48, pointed out that despite the hope that the eventual arrival of a vaccine to prevent covid-19 could generate, he has been undergoing a quarantine for five months, which due to its length “is unique in the world “.
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“I see people who cannot work … ask a bricklayer, a hotelier that they won’t let them,” said the man who considered himself lucky because he is allowed to work under strict health protocols in a soft drink factory.
In the interior of the country, the marches brought together, among others, agricultural producers who complained of political corruption, leaders who “treat the State as if it were theirs” and who apply “absurd recipes” with which the people are ” more defenseless and poorer “.
The day was encouraged by leaders of the Together for Change coalition with which Mauricio Macri governed (2015-2019).
Since the pandemic hit in March, there have been some 300,000 infected and 5,800 deaths. Argentina is one of the countries with the lowest fatality rate in the region, according to authorities.
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In an official act, Fernández questioned the protest and highlighted the need to create unity. “We have had a unique moment of humanity, where a pandemic infects us, kills us and we have to rebuild a country that has left indebted, annihilated, and have conditioned the future of many generations,” he said about the administration’s legacy of Macri.
The president announced on Friday the extension of the quarantine until August 30.
Fernández has stressed the need to avoid social encounters. He questioned days ago the protest congregations scheduled at a time when the pandemic impacts the most in the South American country, a criticism also shared by opposition leaders such as the mayor of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
Since March 20, soccer has been suspended and schools closed in most of the country; Commercial flights are not enabled either, and restaurants and bars only deliver or allow food withdrawals. Shops and factories operate under security protocols and several individual sports, such as tennis, have started to be enabled.
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