Protesters gathered in Buenos Aires City and other districts in Buenos Aires province to hold a pot-bashing march against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s administration. People has gathered at the Obelisk, the crossroads of Rivadavia and Acoyte, Santa Fe and Callao and many towns in Greater Buenos Aires.
In Buenos Aires City, protesters, who have conducted the build-up of the march via Internet’s major social networks, began gathering at the corners of Corrientes and Pueyrredón; Callao and Sante Fe avenues at 7pm and started heading toward the “Pink House.”
Protesters also gathered at Greater Buenos Aires and La Plata City: They met at the crossroad of Avenida de Mayo and Rivadavia in the locality of Ramos Mejía; in Lomas de Zamora they met in front of the municipality, in Grigera square. While the gathering at the provincial capital city was in front of the Basilica.
The pot-banging was summoned under several premises, such as the defence of the institutions and democracy, inflation, crimes, dollar clamp and freedom of speech demands.
The march, which has been described as popular and impulsive to a mere ploy by the opposition, according to opposite ends of the political spectrum had already had its first protests set in front of the Argentine Consulate in Australia by expats living in the Oceania.
Social networks have contributed largely to the set up. Protesters were not only summoned nationwide, but also overseas. Thus, pot-bashing protests are also expected to be seen at Argentina’s consulates and embassies in: Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt, Bonn, Hamburg); Austria; Bolivia, Brazil (Río de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte); Canada (Toronto, Montreal); Chile (Santiago, Valparaíso); China; Colombia; Costa Rica; England; France; Israel (Tel aviv, Hertzlia Pituah, Migdal Haemek); Italy (Roma, Milan, Padova); Japan, Mexico; Norway; Panama; Paraguay; Peru; Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Palma de Mallorca, Valencia); South Africa; Sweden; Switzerland; Netherlands (Hague, Amsterdam); Uruguay (Montevideo, Punta del Este, Maldonado, Colonia); USA (Washington DC, Miami, New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston); Venezuela.
Here some of the most heated opinions on the 8N:
Mauricio Macri (Buenos Aires City mayor, PRO):
“On 8N, let’s attend with only one flag, the Argentine one.”
Aníbal Fernández (Victory Front senator):
“I have no doubt that the mobilization is an invention of the paid extreme-right wing, although there are people who want to march because there are things they do not like.”
Estela Barnes de Carlotto (Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo president):
“The protest is not useful for anyone, because it lacks a petition with proposals, (although) I don’t dispute it, because it’s a constitutional right.”
Luis D’Elía (Picket leader)
“Tomorrow the 8N fools are going to assemble people, they will exaggerate everything and that’s when the coup-mongering diatribe begins.Clarín, Macri, and Duhalde are summoning people for 8N in a city corroded by rubbish and foul smell.”
Source: Buenos Aires Herald