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“The Night of the Saucepans,” an anti-de la Rúa demonstration by the middle class in
December 2001 (Axel Laveglia)
ees. No one wished to float the overvalued currency because devalua-
tion would reduce the real incomes of those who still had jobs. Public
protests, nonetheless, increased pressure on de la Rúa to do something.
Workers launched more than eight general strikes in his first two years
in office, and the unemployed marched through the streets, bearing
pictures of Evita Perón. Middle-class housewives banged on empty pots
and pans in their protests. In the meantime, a rash of business bank-
ruptcies threw more and more people out of work. Cavallo resigned as
economics minister.
The protests finally achieved critical mass in December 2001, as riot-
ers again sacked supermarkets throughout the nation. These actions
replicated the IMF riots of the previous decade. A massive protest
march on the Casa Rosada led to violent clashes with police. Thirty-five
people died, and thousands were arrested. President de la Rúa tendered
his resignation and escaped the surrounding rioting by departing the
Casa Rosada aboard a helicopter.
There followed a two-week period of constitutional uncertainty,
marked by the congressional selection of three interim presidents in
rapid succession. The fourth and final one, Eduardo Duhalde, had
been the Peronist candidate during the presidential election of 1999.
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