The Argentine piqueteros related to Peronism tighten the rope against their own Government

The Peronist piquetero movements have marched this Wednesday against their own government. They did it in front of the Ministry of Social Development, where some of its main leaders control as officials the distribution of state aid to the poorest. At the head of the protest was the CTA Autonoma, a labor union that goes outside the traditional CGT, to which groups such as the Evita Movement joined. Its main director, Emilio Pérsico, manages the entire structure of the social plans, but now he is facing the minister, Victoria Tolosa Paz, for what he considers a cut in funds promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). From the Casa Rosada they get tired of denying that there is no cut in social assistance; much less that the IMF is behind an eventual cut in funds. But the rift between the social movements and the government of the Peronist Alberto Fernández is growing with only six months to go before the general elections.

The Evita Movement marched under the slogan “Enough of the IMF adjustment”, a message that until now was the patrimony of the piqueteros of the non-Peronist left. The tension between Pérsico and the minister rose last week, after an IMF report that recommends “strengthening the targeting of the emblematic social employment program (Potenciar Trabajo)”, to “guarantee macroeconomic stability”. The Potenciar Trabajo is the star plan of the Government. In exchange for a four-hour labor benefit in some “executing unit”, 1.4 million people receive 52,000 pesos each month (up to 250 dollars at the official exchange rate). The executing units can be provincial or municipal governments, universities and civil organizations such as social movements. It is the latter that administer more than half of the plans through the presentation of the lists of eventual beneficiaries.

The problems arose in November 2022, when an official report observed that some 250,000 people received the Potenciar Trabajo irregularly. At the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Social Development canceled 85,000 plans in a purge process that first put the opposition piqueteros on a war footing and now those who are part of the government. The Evita Movement and its allies see behind the adjustments the black hand of the IMF.

In January 2022, the Casa Rosada opened an adjustment plan with the agency in exchange for the moratorium on debt payments of 44,000 million dollars that Argentina contracted in 2018. Minister Tolosa Paz denied that it was necessary in her plans to lower the money destined for the poorest. “There is no new goal or adjustment condition neither from the IMF nor from any actor in the financial or credit system on social policy in Argentina. It is not true that the reduction in the number of holders of the Empower Work has been requested or set as a goal, ”she said last week.

Social movements have been warning for months about the deterioration of the economic situation of the lowest strata. Inflation of 102% year-on-year is destroyed by the income of the poorest, who increasingly depend on state aid to eat. As administrators of a large part of this aid, organizations such as Evita even consider themselves guarantors of social peace. When the demonstration grew in front of the ministry offices, Tolosa Paz reminded them that they were part of “those who understood that Empowering Work had to be given an order.”

The picketers say that this hidden arrangement has not really adjusted the funds, conditioned by the economic crisis and the official commitment to reduce the fiscal red to 1.9% of GDP this year. The protest, in fact, coincided with the trip of the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, to Washington, where he will participate in the spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank.

Massa will seek new credits and a relaxation of the fiscal adjustment goal, arguing that the drought that devastated the Argentine countryside, the worst in 60 years, will leave a gap of 20,000 million dollars in income from exports. Argentina will already manage to lower the goal of accumulating international reserves to which it had committed for 2023 by 2,000 million dollars. Now it will try to get them to also let it spend more.

Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS America newsletter and receive all the latest news in the region.