Some photos from Monday’s Fiesta de la Democracia in Plaza de Mayo. The crowd wasn’t nearly as large as it looks in the photos or on TV. Everybody was crammed into the part of the Plaza that is nearest the Casa Rosada. On the other side of the security fence that runs across the Plaza were very few people. For most events the security fence is used to keep the crowd far away from Casa Rosada. This time the fence came in useful to make it appear that there was a larger crowd.

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, if the Kirchners hadn’t bused in a ton of supporters then there would have been very few people present. Befitting a peronist shindig, wandering through the crowd was a guy selling huge photos of Evita.

Yesterday I walked down to Av de Mayo to witness the inauguration day parade of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Scores of buses that had carried people in from the province were lined up along the part of Av 9 de Julio south of Av Belgrano. If the Kirchners’s hadn’t bused in supporters then the crowd for the later fiesta in Plaza de Mayo would have been very small. It seems like most porteños found something better to do on a very pleasant afternoon. I’m a sucker for pomp and ceremony.

Even along Av de Mayo it was very easy to find a spot along the fence that the police had installed on Av de Mayo. For most of Av de Mayo the crowd was only one person deep along the barricade.

Coming along first was the colorful military unit on horseback along with their band. I’ve not seen these guys since Perón’s reburial. They had a nice sound. I didn’t bring a real video cam but caught a few seconds of grainy video with my Sony digital camera.

And here’s the video of Cristina riding in the back of the car, waving, and asking one of her security detail to give her a rose tossed by the crowd.

I’m glad I went. Afterwards I made my way down to Plaza de Mayo for the Fiesta de la Democracia. Tomorrow’s blog posting will have photos from the plaza.

Not much to say about today’s presidential election in Argentina, certainly no surprises. I don’t have a problem with a Cristina presidency. Indeed, all the top three candidates - Cristina, Lavagna, Carrió - seemed okay to me. I do have this theory that Cristina might give a further boost for tourism to Argentina just through the inevitable appearances she is likely to make on the E! channel based on her fashion sense.