By Horacio Fernando Soria and Agustin Marcarian
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -Argentine President Javier Milei was rushed out of a public event by his security team in Buenos Aires province on Wednesday after protesters threw rocks and other objects at his car, according to Reuters witnesses.
The president was standing in the back of a moving pickup truck with security team members and his sister Karina Milei, who is also his chief of staff, while campaigning for upcoming local and midterm elections.
Some people in the crowd began throwing things, with at least one rock hitting the hood of the truck. Other items were seen being thrown over the president’s head.
The pickup truck sped away from the crowd, which was yelling anti-government chants like “Get out, Milei.” People within the crowd were also fighting each other.
Milei’s spokesperson Manuel Adorni said on X that members of the opposition “attacked” the president’s caravan and that there were no injuries.
After the incident, Milei posted a picture of himself giving a thumbs up alongside his sister and a congressman, and said the opposition “throws stones empty of ideas, turning once again to violence.”
Several people in Milei’s inner circle, including his sister, are embroiled in a corruption scandal over allegations of bribery in Argentina’s agency for the disabled.
Milei’s caravan was moving through streets of Lomas de Zamora, a district in Buenos Aires province that is traditionally a stronghold of the Peronist opposition movement.
Argentine authorities on Friday raided a series of properties as part of a criminal investigation into an alleged kickback scheme related to Diego Spagnuolo, who headed the disability agency.
Local media published audio recordings in which a voice that sounds like that of Spagnuolo can be heard discussing bribery within the agency and alluding to Karina Milei taking payments.
Milei’s government last week fired Spagnuolo “as a preventive measure,” it said in a statement.
At Wednesday’s event, Milei publicly addressed the scandal for the first time. Speaking to journalists following his caravan, he lashed out at Spagnuolo, according to local media. “Everything he says is a lie. We’re going to take him to court and prove he lied,” he told reporters.
The president’s strict austerity measures, aimed at taming inflation, have brutally cut funding to many public services, angering many Argentines and denting support over his so-called “chainsaw” approach, recent polls have shown.
Local pollster Synopsis recorded a six percentage point increase to 54.2% in Milei’s negative image among Argentines in August, compared to June.
Local elections in the province of Buenos Aires on September 7 and midterm elections on October 26 are both crucial opportunities for Milei to expand his government’s power and fight harder against opposition attempts to reign in his spending cuts, which he hopes will attract international investment and boost trade.
(Additional reporting by Nicolas Misculin, Leila Miller and Maximilian Heath; Writing by Cassandra Garrison and Paolo Laudani; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Alistair Bell)
