BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is battling an angry middle class, disgruntled unions and the country’s biggest media group. But despite growing social unrest and her own falling popularity ratings, the defiant Kirchner has vowed not to diverge from her left-wing model.
Hundreds of thousands of Argentines protested across the country on Nov. 8 against what they view as Kirchner’s creeping authoritarianism. The mass demonstration, dubbed 8N, was followed by the nation’s first general strike in more than a decade on Nov. 20. Media conglomerate Clarín, meanwhile, is refusing to adhere to an anti-monopoly law set to go into effect Dec. 7, calling it an unconstitutional suppression of free speech.
Kirchner, however, remains unmoved. Echoing the antagonistic tone of previous declarations, she told opposing union leaders shortly after the strike, “Nobody is going to scare me off.”