Argentina is braced for a wave of protests against the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, amid growing disquiet over a faltering economy and efforts to clamp down on the media.
Activists hope to rally thousands of people on Thursday for a string of demonstrations against a proposed constitutional reform that would allow Fernández to seek a third term in 2015, and a move to break up the country's main media group.
In the five years since Fernández succeeded her husband Néstor Kirchner in office, Argentina has grown increasingly polarised between those who argue the president's reforms will create a more egalitarian society, and opponents who accuse her creeping authoritarianism.
"A wide gulf has opened," said Jorge Lanata, the chain-smoking journalist whose weekly satirical TV show Periodismo Para Todos (Journalism For All) has helped shift the balance of public opinion.
"On one side you have the government and its supporters who are convinced they are carrying out a revolution – and it's logical that you shouldn't respect freedom of the press or the constitution if you're engaged in a revolution," said Lanata. "On the other are the people who defend democracy, who are horrified at seeing freedom of the press and the Constitution attacked."
With Fernández's political rivals in disarray, the role of the opposition has been taken up by journalists such as Lanata and internet-based activists, such as
Mariana Torres, a 41-year-old divorced mother of three who runs one of the main Facebook pages behind the anti-government protests. "I started navigating the internet looking for a job when my marriage broke up," she says. "That's when I discovered the Facebook pages that criticize the government."
Torres's Facebook group and others like it helped muster thousands of saucepan-banging protesters who took to the streets on 13 September after the government's ban on buying dollars – a move that sparked fury in a nation where US banknotes have long been a safeguard against the fluctuating exchange rates.
Fernández's supporters say the protests are the result of a far-right conspiracy, a charge denied by Torres's fellow Facebook administrator, Marcelo Morán. Although there are a large number of similar anonymously-run pages, Torres and Morán stand out because they have decided to show their faces.
"We do not represent any political party," he said. "On the contrary, we are just as worried about the opposition politicians."
Lanata admits his programme, which combines hard-hitting reports on corruption with comedy sketches featuring mocking Fernández and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, has been a catalyst for dissent. "In my first programme I said I hoped we could learn to lose our fear, and that seems to have happened: people are now willing to speak out against this government."
But to the president's supporters Lanata represents the kind of corporate media whose power President Fernández de Kirchner has vowed to rein in.
"There is a sector that historically and since the beginning of this government has opposed projects of social inclusion, justice and distribution," said the cabinet chief, Juan Manuel Abal Medina after a nationwide rally against constitutional reform in September.
"Those sectors in the past resorted to coup d'états, today they resort to the big media. They are privileged classes who seek to keep their privileges."
Lanata's show is broadcast on Channel 13, part of the country's largest media conglomerate, which also publishes Argentina's largest newspaper, Clarín. The group is widely perceived to be the target of a new media law which comes into effect on 7 December, forcing it to sell off its non-print holdings including the largest cable and internet operator in Argentina – and its main income earner, and possibly the Channel 13.
The slogan "Clarín Lies" is printed on banners hanging from government buildings and was emblazoned on the T-shirt of during last year's election campaign.
At Clarín itself the atmosphere is tense. "We don't know exactly what will happen," says managing editor Ricardo Kirschbaum. "There are rumours the government plans to take over Cablevision that day, which undoubtedly would affect us at the newspaper."
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