Originally published at https://www.pstu.org.br
We thank you for the votes for Vera and for the candidacies of the PSTU and the Socialist and Revolutionary Pole that we received in the first round of the elections. We defended the expropriation of the billionaires, demanded an end to poverty, and the need to build an alternative of revolutionary, socialist, class independence in our country, to fight for a socialist government of the workers and the poor.
In the second round, when we cannot present an independent candidacy. We support a critical vote for Lula to defeat Bolsonaro in the elections. This is because Bolsonaro vindicates the military dictatorship, defends an authoritarian project, and threatens democratic freedoms. To remain in control of the state apparatus facilitates his authoritarian project. Although it is necessary to defeat Bolsonaro in the elections, and we will campaign alongside workers to do so, the defeat of the ultra-right will only be possible through the independent mobilization of our class, the organization of self-defense, and changing the social and political conditions that gave rise to its emergence.
We support a critical vote for Lula because we do not support the capitalist, social-liberal and class conciliatory project of the PT, expressed in the Lula-Alckmin ticket, of broad alliances with capital. We will not be part of or support such a government. We will be the opposition. We have already seen that a government that works with the bosses to manage the system always attacks workers, and does not end the ills of our people or guarantee the sovereignty of the country. On the contrary, the deepening of social problems combined with the retreat of class consciousness were fuel for the emergence of Bolsonarism.
We must prepare the fight from the bottom up, with class independence, to press our demands.
Bolsonaro never again!
We were among the first to raise “Fora Bolsonaro e Mourão” and to defend the overthrow of this government in the streets.
Bolsonaro is responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the pandemic. He is also responsible for the shortages, unemployment, and hunger, and is preparing a wave of evictions.
The environment continues to be destroyed by the overwhelming advance of agribusiness, logging and mining companies, under the protection and encouragement of Bolsonaro, while continuing the genocide of indigenous peoples, persecution of activists and researchers, and the dismantling of public agencies for environmental protection and native peoples advance. He also threatens democratic freedoms, the right to organization and expression of the working class.
Organize the struggle for jobs, wages, land, and rights
After defeating Bolsonaro and electing Lula, we should not put our trust in the government, but rather advance the independent struggle and organization of the working class to, through mobilization, demand jobs, wages, land, housing, and rights.
We must organize the struggle and demand the immediate repeal of the labor and social security reforms, which a Lula-Alckmin government will not want to do.
We must demand the reduction of the workday without reducing wages, the guarantee of full employment with rights and a work card for all (including app workers), the general increase of wages in the face of the rising cost of living.
We must demand a 100% state-owned Petrobras, under workers’ control, and the restatization of privatized companies like Vale, CSN and others. To guarantee sovereignty, we must stop the handover of the country and also defend the environment.
We must also demand the demarcation of indigenous lands against the landmark agrarian reform, and family agriculture against agribusiness.
For education, health, housing, and quality public services, we need to end the Fiscal Responsibility Law, replacing it with a Social Responsibility Law, suspending the payment of the debt to the bankers.
We reiterate the need to organize the struggle and self-defense of the working class from the bottom up, because the defeat of Bolsonarism is not possible only with Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat. It requires social mobilization and a program that changes the social and political conditions that feed it.
