Argentine President Alberto Fernandez called for unity on Saturday as protesters marched in the capital to the gates of the presidential palace, lambasting his government over soaring inflation and a crushing national debt.
The center-left president is facing a rising challenge from a militant left-wing of the ruling coalition that wants more state spending to ease high poverty levels and inflation. Two key moderate allies have left his Cabinet in the last month.
In the streets of Buenos Aires thousands of protesters marched on Saturday afternoon with banners saying "breakaway from the IMF" and "Out, Fund, out". Marchers criticized the government and called for debt payments not to be made. "Argentina is a capitalist semi-colony in the chains of the IMF. Today we are here to say we need a second independence. Argentina must break its ties with the IMF which is the Spanish Empire of the 21st century."