Argentina-Farm dispute heating up again as it enters second year.

ARGENTINA-FARMERS AND GOVERNMENT.

Argentine farmers confronting President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner since a year ago, yesterday warned that her decision on Friday to bring forward mid-term elections from October to June is a sign of political weakness and a manoeuvre that they fear may help her one-year-old administration to continue refusing to bow to their demands that she lower export duties.

Talking to the Herald, they dismissed the government’s allegations that governability was at risk amid a global economic crisis, and vowed to continue to press their demands both in further talks with the administration scheduled for Tuesday and in Congress, as well as consider a revival of the sales boycotts they resorted to.

They also admitted that the government’s announcement that it would be sending this week to Congress a bill to bring the vote forward to June 28, may contribute to take the limelight somewhat off from their protests.

’A cheque book at risk.’ Argentine Agrarian Confederation (CRA) Vice-President Néstor Roulet said that the liaison board made up of the country’s four largest farm lobbies has not had time yet to consider the sudden announcement made by the President, who at the peak of the dispute last year accused farmers of seeking to overthrow her administration.

However, Roulet said: "This is an electoral manoeuvre. They saw that otherwise, come October, they would be in a very bad shape. The global crisis is just an excuse. Not for bringing forward the election there will be less crisis.

"We fear that this may allow the government to continue to retain a majority (in Congress) to continue with the policies that have affected the farm sector so much. What the government calls "governability" is actually the "cheque book,’" Roulet added.

Farmers are affected by a plunge in international prices and by the most severe drought in the country’s history, but they argue that it is mainly discretional and distortive policies the key factors behind Argentina’s estimating to harvest this season about 30 million tons less of grains as compared to the 95 million tons of last year.

In March last year the President, at the proposal of Domestic Trade Secretary Guillermo Moreno, sharply rose export duties at a time when global grain prices were skyrocketing on the back of a strong demand from China and India, only to tailspin a few months later.

Mrs. Kirchner alleged that farmers were reaping extraordinary gains and that her administration needed additional funds to foster a more even distribution of wealth and to restore a balance among crops in the country, upset after Argentina more than two decades ago experienced a soybean boom that led it to become the world’s third largest exporter of soy. The country consumes only five percent of the soy it produces.

Amid the farmers’ nationwide protests Congress forced the President to roll back duties to their previous 35 percent, which is still a confiscatory level, and although the government has bowed to some demands made by the farm sector, farmers say that the measures either fail to be implemented or are absolutely insufficient.

They say that the government is taking them as scapegoats for inflation and an economy that is sharply shrinking after five years of a yearly nine-percent growth.

Argentine Rural Society (SRA) Director Ricardo Smith Estrada said that the only reason for bringing forward the election was the government’s political weakness.

"You only have to recall the words of (former president) Néstor Kirchner, who just some days ago told the Catamarca ruling party that bringing forward a vote was a sign of weakness."

On Sunday 8 the ruling Social and Civic Front of Governor Eduardo Brizuela del Moral — a former ally of the Kirchners — dealt a severe blow to the President’s Victory Front by winning local elections by a wide margin.

The President’s husband had gone one day before to Catamarca to forge a "Peronist unity" alliance that began to fall apart even before the vote.

Brizuela del Moral is an ally of Vice-President Julio Cobos, who is not on speaking terms with the President after his tie-breaking vote in the Senate in July last year was crucial to force her roll back the duty increases she had introduced, and Catamarca became the first electoral battlefield this year between the President and Cobos. Mrs. Kirchner has suggested that Cobos is a traitor and some leading government supporters in Congress have demanded his resignation. Cobos insists that he will complete his mandate in 2011. He, the same as Brizuela del Moral, is a former "K Radical," as Radicals who support the Kirchner are referred to.

With regard to the governability risk alleged by the Kirchners, Smith Estrada said: "There is absolutely no institutional danger. Nobody wants Cristina to go. Kirchner’s statements are lies, the same when they blamed the farm sector for being unable to build more hospitals. This doesn’t even deserve an analysis."

The year-long dispute has made the image of the President plunge and the mid-term vote are crucial ahead of the presidential election scheduled for 2011.

The dispute has also sparked and exodus of government supporters in Congress that is threatening the Victory Front majority in both Houses.

Argentine Agrarian Federation Director Pedro Peretti said: "There is no institutional risk, nobody advocates a coup. What Kirchner has clearly seen is that they may reach October facing tremendous social conflicts, which would further risk their clout on their ranks and that they could even lose the 129-seat majority in the Lower House and even their majority in the Senate." The move may help the Kirchners to obtain a likely "less disastrous defeat," he added.

Farmers say that the government’s political decision is likely to lead their protests to lose public impact.

However, Roulet said, "we will not go crazy for three months more or less."

Smith Estrada said that not only the demands of farmers will become less visible in the coming weeks but also the issue of an outrageous crime wave that the farm crisis has contributed to overshadow.

A farm leader talking on condition of anonymity said: "the loss of public impact will be directly proportional to the number of people we may be able to send to protest to the roads. A union fight is like a surgery operation. Sometimes you need a sales boycott, another day a rally, another day presence in Congress, another day a roadblock. Each instrument has its time."

But Carlos Garetto, head of the Coninagro cooperatives confederation and one of the four members of the liaison board, said that he did not see the farmers’ protest losing much steam. He also said that blocking roads "is already a stage that has been overcome."

Farm leaders had been urging grassroots not to block roads — many times to no avail — to prevent farmers from losing the support of the population.

Garetto said that the marking in Córdoba of the first anniversary of the dispute with a call to grassroots to appear at the roadsides was just a symbolic decision. He added that farmers would continue to press their demands "talking to the government every day if necessary, even though we may obtain small solutions. Something is better than nothing."

Several farm leaders have been tempted by political parties to run in their slates and the government’s move now forces those who considered to run to make up their minds.

FAA President Eduardo Buzzi last year said that he turned down an offer by former president Eduardo Duhalde to run for the national Lower House. Duhalde is behind an alliance between Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, the head of the centre-right Republican proposal party, and "dissident" peronist deputies Felipe Solá and Francisco de Narváez, a businessman.

The maverick Alfredo De Angeli, who heads the Entre Ríos branch of the F