Argentina’s lower house of Congress approved on Thursday a broadcast reform bill being pushed by President Cristina Fernandez that critics say will increase state control over the media. The bill, which supporters defend saying it will make the airwaves more democratic, will now be sent to the Senate, where it could face closer scrutiny.
More than 100 opposition lawmakers walked out of the lower house vote to protest the bill, which has pitted Fernandez against the Grupo Clarin media group in her latest showdown with a powerful business sector.
Lawmakers voted 146 to 3 early Thursday morning after more than 14 hours of acrimonious debate and opponents stormed out.
Center-left leader Fernandez says her reform of decades-old media regulations will restrict the number of licences controlled by dominant media players and allow smaller players and non-profit groups more access to broadcast frequencies. Critics say her main motive is to crush the influential Grupo Clarin conglomerate, and opposition politicians question elements of the reform such as the way the state will be able to assign frequencies in small cities and towns.
Opposition lawmakers who boycotted the vote said the government had rushed the bill through committee without proper review. “It’s a farce. There has not been a proper debate of something that is a transcendent law … we couldn’t even finish reading it,” Deputy Adrian Perez, head of the Civic Coalition opposition party in the lower house, told TN television.
(Source: Reuters)
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