MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine takes to the streets on Thursday to protest against Cristina Fernandez

Sharp tongued Senator Fernandez blames says the protest will bring together reactionary “ultra-right factions”

Argentine pro and anti-government officials, politicians and lawmakers took to the nation’s radio stations to speak out on Thursday’s planned 8-N anti-government pot-banging protest, highlighting issues of class and ethics, but denying that the measure could be comparable to the magnitude of protests that took place in 2001.

The November 8 protest entitled ‘8-N’ is planned to take place in Buenos Aires City and in the main cities across Argentina, in protest against the President Cristina Fernández’ administration.

Ruling coalition (Victory Front) Senator Aníbal Fernández, who spoke on Monday dismissing the action as the “ultra right-wing factions in defence of Clarín media group’s interests,” commented again that “while there are people who are going to protest tomorrow because of things they don’t like, most of them are brought together by the fact that have direct backing by the extreme right.”

Furthermore, the Victory Front lawmaker had no difficulty adding names to faces, linking the protests directly to ”la Fundación Pensar (run by City Mayor Mauricio Macri) and la Sociedad Rural (Farmers’ lobby)” organizations, amongst others, that have “put together money and created false profiles on social media.”

Opposition Radical party (UCR) lawmaker María Luisa Storani however challenged the claims of ultra-right wing factions planning the strike and took away from it being an issue pinned to one class.

“The worst thing to be done is for a class division to be made. They’re saying it’s a right-wing demonstration and it’s not. The 8-N is a democratic event,” Storani said.

Lawmaker for the centre-right PRO party Federico Pinedo said that “the middle class in Argentina makes up less than 30% of the total population. Brushing the topic aside as if it were nothing is not an option.”

In addition, the opposition lawmaker said that “Taking a class approach is a mistake, because precisely what the people are demanding is that on Thursday they are listened to.”

The last major anti-government protest to take over Argentina’s largest cities took place on September 13 (13-S) and involved tens of thousands of people, making it the biggest anti-government demonstration to date since the farming dispute in 2008.

Even when 8N has the support of opposition parties and unions, the protest has been mostly organized by common citizens through the social networks and most probably politicians won’t show up at the demonstration or will mark a very low profile.