Martín Lousteau lanches BA city mayor bid vowing to regulate the right to protest

Without naming him, he also criticized his JxC rival Jorge Macri for competing despite being a former BA province district mayor

Senator and Radical Party (UCR, by its Spanish acronym) member Martín Lousteau launched his campaign Thursday to become Buenos Aires city mayor vowing to regulate the right to protest, while also criticizing his Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) primaries rival, PRO member Jorge Macri, without naming him.

“My team is obsessed with the city, not somebody who was in a municipality in the province and came here all of a sudden,” said Lousteau, a reference to the fact that, up until December of 2021, Macri was the mayor of Vicente Lópz, a district in northern Buenos Aires province.

Lousteau launched the campaign of his political space Radical Evolution with a rally in the Malvinas Argentinas mini stadium in the BA city neighborhood of La Paternal, surrounded by fellow party members, including Radical Party member and vice presidential candidate, Jujuy Governor Gerardo Morales, national deputy Martín Tetaz and BA city national deputy candidate Graciela Ocaña. 

Among his proposals, Lousteau said he would look to regulate the right to protest, echoing a controversial provision of Jujuy’s recent constitutional reform, adding that the goal is to approve new regulations “that assure a balance between the right to protest and to circulate.” 

“We cannot condone forms [of protest] that make life difficult for all of us, demands that are justified but cannot take place like that. We’re going to approve a new code of coexistence, similar to what they did in Jujuy and Mendoza,” said Lousteau, in reference to the Buenos Aires city law that regulates damage or danger to individual or collective goods.

“If the form of picketering is not correctly done, there will be a penalty,” he said, adding that there will also be sanctions for those who take children to protests. “We don’t pay social welfare plans [so children] can be taken to protests.”

Lousteau also sought to distance from the tough-on-crime position of Macri, who has said he would give taser guns to women victims of gender based violence. “We’re in favor of using non-violent weapons like taser guns, but not for women suffering gender based violence. For them, we will create a Gender Violence Court, use more electronic ankle bracelets and respond faster.”

Even though he said his intent is to “transform the city,” Lousteau made a point of saying that they would “build upon a foundation that is set,” praising current BA city mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta’s work, stating that numerous proposals his political sector made for the city in the last four years were carried out. 

-with information from Télam

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