BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (PNN) - February 9, 2013 - Supermarkets and electronics retailers say Argentina's government has ordered them to stop advertising in the country's top newspapers, in a bid to weaken independent media companies as President Cristina Kirchner turns to increasingly unorthodox policies to prevent inflation from derailing an ailing economy.

The order, confirmed by retailers and newspapers but denied by government officials, comes after retail executives say price-control czar Guillermo Moreno pressured them earlier this week to agree to freeze prices for two months. Executives say Moreno then told them to pull all newspaper sales ads in hopes this would somehow curb inflation. "This was an imposition, not a request. He simply decided that nobody should publish any ads. It's not sustainable and will be hard to comply with," said one retail-sector executive.

Argentina is resorting to this dictatorial measure in order to stifle the independent press for one simple reason - "misreporting" inflation, or at least reporting inflation numbers that are orders of magnitude higher than the official government numbers.

President Kirchner played down inflation for years, refusing even to say the word in public. But with economists estimating annual inflation at around 26%, she has been calling on consumers to prevent companies from raising prices. A sluggish economy and Kirchner's confrontational political style have also taken a toll on her popularity.

The Buenos Aires Newspaper Editors Association said the order was a reprisal against those who publish independent inflation estimates. "This is another display of how far authoritarianism can go in a context that is dominated by discretional policies and bullying," the group said in a harshly worded newspaper ad Friday.

The controversy comes as Kirchner attempts to implement a three-year-old media law that would overhaul Argentina's media industry and dismantle media giant Grupo Clarín SA, which publishes Argentina's bestselling newspaper, Clarín, and runs a profitable cable-TV and Internet network.

However, while the motive is quite clear, it shows the danger of having a truly independent media that is not aligned with the government's propaganda.

Kirchner accuses Clarín of using its sway to undermine her government. Clarín officials say the government started targeting it in 2007, when it began reporting that the government was underestimating inflation.

In 2011, the government started fining economists for publishing their own inflation estimates. To protect them, a group of opposition legislators began publishing the economists' monthly inflation estimates anonymously.

Keep an eye on just how far Kirchner will go to keep her place in power - that will be a useful indicator of what is coming to every banana republic next, and quite soon.