MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian press says Mrs. Kirchner “back stepped” in conflict

The Brazilian press unanimously considered that Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner “back stepped” in the 100 days dispute with farmers over export levies on oilseeds and grains.

"Cristina yields and sends the tax bill to Congress" said Folha de Sao Paulo, adding in the front page that the congressional debate on the controversial tax was one of the demands from the farmers. Clovis Rossi, the main political columnist from Folha de Sao Paulo wrote that in Argentina "every body wants to protest and nobody wants to negotiate", although there's a huge distance "between agitating phantoms of the past and wanting to compare the current situation with the 2001/02 collapse". "Even if the government has lost support it's not demoralized as happened and was evident seven years ago with the entire political establishment. The economic situation is deteriorating but is very far from the 2001 melting of the Argentine economy", wrote Rossi recalling the time when bank deposits were confiscated triggering a popular revolt that ended with the resignation of then president Fernando De la Rúa.. Similarly O'Globo published in the front page a headline saying "unexpected back step for Cristina", adding that the pans' banging of Monday night in several Argentine cities forced the government to make its position "more flexible". O Estado de Sao Paulo said that protests forced Cristina to yield adding that the on going conflict with farmers has reduced "Argentina's economic growth expectations for this year" and possibly in 2009. The financial newspaper Valor argues that "inflation has fueled the Argentine crisis" and pointed out to contradictions inside the administration of Mrs. Kirchner regarding the method to measure the evolution of prices. "The inflationary escalade is hitting harder those countries with heterodox economic policies and this had made Venezuela and Argentina leaders in the prices' competition", concludes the newspaper.