Thu Mar 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Left-Wing Front: an electoral alternative crops up

Neither Lula nor Alckmin


Ze María (national PSTU president) says


 “The Front is a must for the workers”


After several months of discussions, the proposal put forward by PSTU, to conform a left-wing front for the forthcoming election was put into practice. We are here reproducing an Opinao Socialista interview with Ze Maria of the national PSTU leadership, where he poses his opinions on the electoral front integrated by the PSOL-PSTU and PCB


Opinao Socialist: What is the importance of this Left-Wing Front for the forthcoming elections?
Ze Maria ? The fact that the Front exists is what allows the working class and left-wing sectors to create condition to unblock the false polarization between Lula and Alckmin, PT and PSDBB, asserting an alternative project representing the interests of the Brazilian working class. Workers are facing a false debate, nourished from the government and the media, that they can choose between voting Lula and Alckmin. Lula is not an option for the workers and we must discuss this for most of them are being deceived. It is an administration that betrayed the expectations of the people, one that practices a policy that rewards the bankers and great entrepreneurs. Brazil pays nearly 170 000nillion reales a year to the bankers and great entrepreneurs, who are the creditors of the public debt. Evidently this is a policy that comes hot on the heels of what FHC used to do, rewarding those who had always been privileged. The profit of the banks grew by 61% in the 5 first months of his year in relation to the same period of last year. And he sacrifices the ones hat have always been sacrificed. It is the workers who is staggering under the enormous rates of unemployment. Poverty keeps on growing in the country, something the government is trying hard to conceal by means of such policies as bag-family, scholarship-classroom, which are ultimately nothing but the perpetuation of poverty. The administration also practises the same corruption as FHC and the governments of the PSDB. There is no difference between the policy of buying votes for the re-election of FHC and what happened in the latest scandal of corruption. Alckmin represents the attempt at return of the old right, the one that we have already seen in the office, represented by FHC, Collor. The right has always governed this country in the name of the great corporations, the bankers, the great landed estates, they have always massacred workers and practised overt and corruption running riot every time they were could win. It is not only the examples of the FHC administration that are there to prove what we are saying but also the Alckmin administration here in Sao Paulo. They are enemies of the working class. They govern for the bourgeoisie. That is why the constitution of a front is a must for the workers. It is necessary to present an alternative that, unlike the two above mentioned, can represent the interests of the working class. Consequently, unblocking this false polarisation is the most important task to help to advance the discussion on a left and socialist alternative for the country. Obviously, each one of the parties of the socialist left has differences with the remaining, but the fact that we have been able to reach a common programme to constitute a front is extremely positive.


Opinao Socialista: Was it correct to set aside your candidacy to vice-presidency to reach an agreement with the PSOL and the PCB?
Ze: Yes. The PSTU had every right to run our own candidate because of our weight. The PSOL had a bureaucratic and hegemonist attitude when they proposed their vice president once they already had the candidate for presidency. But PSTU did not pose the candidacy for vice as a condition for constitution the Front. What we did defend was the need to have a programme in common, the absence of bourgeois parties, such as the PDT and respect to the parties in the definitions of candidacies. A common programme was made, oriented towards the breaking off from imperialism and the PSOL vision of democratic revolution was not upheld. There was no alliance with the PDT either statewide or nation-wide. As for the definition of candidates, we accepted an agreement whereby, in order to make the Front viable, PSOL resigned the main candidacies for the senate in Rio, Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul apart from the candidacy for the government of Minas. This will ensure PSTU visibility within the Front. And, as far as we were concerned, the need for a Front was prior to candidacy because of the political importance it has.


Opinao Socialista: What are the minimum points of programme that you think necessary for a front to be an alternative?
Ze: Firstly, there must be delimitation that it is anticapitalist, anti-imperialist. The programme has to stem out of the defence of the liberation of our country from the imperialist yoke. It must stand for the non-payment of the foreign debt, rejection of the AAFTA. As from there on there are steps inside the country that aim at an reorganisation of Brazilian economy and the use of the country?s resources for the solution of the needs of the people. For example: it is necessary to stop privatisation of state-owned companies and public resources ? something that is happening today with the Petrobrás oil reserves ? and to return to state ownership the one that have already been privatised as is the case of Vale do Rio Doce, the electricity system or steel production; it is necessary to turn the financial system into state-owned and place it in the service of the functioning of popular housing, sanitation, smallholders? farming, food production. It is necessary to revert this situation where the entire people of Brazil work to enrich bankers and make the financial system help towards financing public works, which constitute one of our urgent needs. As from this reordering of economy, we must aim at the achievement of basic demands of the population and the working class: land reform, housing, sanitation, investment in health and education, generating jobs, increase of the minimum wages, fight against the oppression of discriminated social segments forced on to the margin. In other words: we need a programme that aims at breaking off from imperialism. An ample, anticapitalist programme aiming at concrete measures that can respond positively to the demands of the workers. But at the same time, it must be programme pointing at a class solution for our country. This is another point of programme that has a lot to do with the character of the campaign and is by no means of second-line importance. You cannot build a socialist left alternative is there is no strong delimitation form class conciliation. A fundamental part of the process that caused the degeneration of the PT was the feverish search for alliances with sectors of entrepreneurs and political representations of big business with the alibi that it was necessary to get more votes so as to reach power faster. This type of things led to the sacrifice of historic banners of the PT aiming at a transformation of the status quo. Hence orienting the campaign towards class independence, towards the quest for asserting the class against all the bourgeois projects, whether they come from officialism or from the opposition, is an essential issue.


Opinao Socialista:  What relation should there be between the Front and the concrete struggles of the workers and the remaining sectors of the society?
Ze: Consistent with what I said above on it class character, Front should not only support but be in the service of all the social struggles in the country. There can only be a significant transformation to improve workers? living conditions if there is a strong process of mobilisation that may generate this change. Bearing this in mind, the campaign of the left front must stand for the struggles. TV programmes, for example, are to be used to broadcast information about strikes, demonstrations, the struggles of the landless and the homeless, etc because it is this way that the Front can be a tool of change for the country, helping to make the mechanisms through which we can produce the changes: the social mobilisation.

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