Argentina’s Milei, evacuated after protesters hurl rocks at him on the campaign trail

Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, had to be evacuated by security personnel after a group of protesters began throwing rocks and other objects at him during a campaign tour in the province of Buenos Aires. The government stated that there were no injuries and blamed the incidents on Kirchnerism, the main opposition force to the ultra right-wing administration. Both factions will face off next Sunday, September 6, in the province’s legislative elections.

Milei, of the Liberty Advances party, was participating in a campaign tour this Wednesday afternoon in the Lomas de Zamora district, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. He was riding in the open back of a pickup truck and, with his right arm raised, waved to the crowd packed into the street. He was accompanied by his sister, Karina Milei, Secretary General of the Presidency, and José Luis Espert, the candidate leading the ruling party’s list for the legislative elections.

The caravan ran into a group of demonstrators who had gathered there to reject the president’s presence in the area. “Out with Milei! Out with Milei!”, they chanted. Many of them were carrying signs protesting the alleged payment of bribes in the state purchase of medication for people with disabilities. That is when the trouble started.

Suddenly, rocks and other objects began flying over the president’s head. Amid the confusion, shouts and insults, Milei’s guards quickly surrounded him with shields. They removed him from the truck and took him away from the scene in an armored vehicle. The rescue included his sister, but not Espert. The candidate left on his own, on a motorcycle. While the evacuation was taking place, several clashes between protesters and police officers took place. Two arrests were made.

“We had walked several blocks peacefully, happily, and with great euphoria, and at one point rocks fell very close to the president,” Espert later told the local press. The situation, he added, “became very violent, and for safety reasons, we decided to end the event.”

Goverment spokesman Manuel Adorni reported that no one was injured, and blamed the Peronist opposition for the attack, the “militants of the old politics, Kirchnerism in its purest form, and a model of violence that only the cavemen of the past want.”

The incidents occurred in the final stretch of the campaign leading up to the provincial legislative elections and almost two months before the national elections. These are key elections for the Milei administration, which has a minority in Congress and aims to improve its parliamentary representation amid a period of economic uncertainty and allegations of corruption.

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