Argentina: Senate Rejects Tax Hike on Agricultural Exports · Global Voices
Jorge Gobbi

The Argentinean Senate recently rejected the proposal to increase taxes on agricultural exports. The poll ended with a tie of 36 votes, and the President of the Chamber, Julio Cobos, who is also the country's Vicepresident and part of Christina Fernandez de Kirchner's team, broke the tie with his vote against the retentions. Such decision is a victory for the sectors linked to the so-called “countryside”, one that includes big land owners, small farmers, and private companies that rent land to harvest soy, a product that nowadays has a high value in the international market. But it also started an internal political crisis of unpredictable consequences for the Argentinean Government, which still has three more years to govern.
At Viva el Campo [es], they celebrated the decision with cheers: “Viva la Patria!” (Long Live the Motherland!), and they summarized the Senate's session where the law project of mobile retentions was rejected. At Paro Agropecuario [es] they make a call to build a better country, and they also hope the President continues her duties, for which she was elected -a response to “coup d'etat” accusations that sectors close to the Government attributed to those who carried out the protest. At Ciudadanos Participando [es]  they say “Kirchner's has her Waterloo”.
Mendieta el Renegau [es] asks to understand Julio Cobos’ position and discusses it without kicking him out of the Government. At Homo Economicus [es]  they wonder about the consequences of the Government's defeat. And at El Blog del Ingeniero [es]  they assure that, in fact, in this long four months conflict, nobody has won and it's more likely we all lost. Meanwhile, at Arte Política [es] , an user of the community started a post to allow users to insult “Cleto”, Julio Cobos’ middle name, who untied the poll against the Government he's part of. Despite the title, you can find a debate about Cobos’ role in the rejection of the law project.
By the way, La Nacion newspaper has a section called “Soy Corresponsal“, where readers can publish texts and pictures, and it had the Senate's voting as the main topic. For those who are looking for posts in English, there isn't much, but you can check out Understanding Argentina; By The Fault and Open Democracy.