PSTU statement before the electoral result
The election of Jair Bolsonaro for President of the Republic in the second round of elections is, without a doubt, a victory of the far right in our country, with all the consequences this may bring.
By: PSTU Brazil
Many workers of our country voted for Bolsonaro, only this explains why he won elections. These workers, however, did not vote for him because they agree with the former Captain’s ideas. They voted for him as a punishment for the PT. The PT emerged from the heart of our class, but it became an ally of bankers and great entrepreneurs to win elections and to rule. It turned its back on the workers. It stood for the interests of the banks and the great entrepreneurs. It became the same thing as the traditional bourgeois parties.
The result is evident: the country did not change, the workers’ and the toiling masses’ lives are more unbearable and the PT even wallowed in the same corruption schemes that have always characterized politics in our country. The workers voted against this situation, against this system represented by the PT, PSDB, MDB and other parties of the sort. Jair Bolsonaro managed to win the votes of workers due to the betrayal and the disappointment on the PT.
As we said before the second round, we think the PT deserves the rejection of the workers because of what it did to our country and our class. In all, we also believe it was mistaken to vote on Bolsonaro to punish the PT. Bolsonaro is not against the system represented by PT, PSDB, MDB. He is actually the worst part of this system – besides attacking our rights as any administration of these parties would do, he also wants to limit our freedom of organization, of struggle and of demonstration. He wants to stop our class from fighting to stand for our rights. He threatens our country with a dictatorship.
For this reason, we also said before the second round that we would be opposition to any of the two administrations elected on October 28. We insist on our standing. We also insist that it is necessary for our class to be prepared to fight in defense of its rights and interests.
We know a significant part of the working class does not believe that Bolsonaro will actually attack the democratic freedoms in our country. However, look at what has happened in the past few days: actions on behalf of a sector of Justice and the police imposed a sort of censorship in the universities. In Ceara, a young man was murdered during a PT demonstration; the same thing that had happened with the capoeira mestre Moa do Katendê, in Bahia, at the end of the first round.
Regarding our rights, today, on elections day, Bolsonaro’s vice president repeated loud and clear the same that the financial guru of the elected president, Paulo Guedes, has been promising, the compromise of making the Pensions reform on the first semester of 2019. This administration will not take measures to guarantee the workers’ rights. Neither will there be measures to guarantee dignified jobs and wages for almost half the working class, which does not even have these.
This government will not bring measures to end discrimination, violence and humiliation that characterize the lives of the poor people living in the peripheries of the great cities. On the contrary, the elected president’s compromise with the increase of profit of the bankers and the great enterprises may only be fulfilled with the increase of suffering of the Brazilian people.
However, whether you agree with our opinions here expressed on the Bolsonaro administration, all workers – independent of the candidate each chose to vote for – stand for their rights and wish to sustain them. We know the poor people in the periphery – independent of the candidate for whom each voted – want an end on the suffering imposed by the capitalist system that we live in.
What matters the most for the PSTU and what we wish to speak about in this statement is that even if you do not agree with our opinion on what the Bolsonaro administration will be, you known one cannot write a blank check to any government. We need to be prepared to defend our rights and interests, which are threatened.
The result of elections does not stop our class from fighting. Our class is not defeated. It may face and defeat any attack on its rights, as long as it is united and organized for struggle.
A United Front to join those below to stand for our rights
We want to make a calling to all workers, to the poor people living in the periphery of the great cities, to the unions, to the labor federations, to the social movements – independent of the candidate for whom each voted and independent of your political or party opinion – to join to fight in defense of the rights and the interests of our class.
We need to organize the workers in a united front in defense of pensions, of jobs and of dignified wages for all. In defense of health, housing and education for the entire population and for the end of discrimination, violence and humiliation imposed to those who live in the periphery of the great cities. To defend our democratic freedoms, to guarantee our right of organization, of expression and of fighting. To stop the government from giving green light for more killings and aggressions which have already begun.
A united front to join the population and build struggle committees in all communities, to guarantee meetings and assemblies in the workplaces and unions, and plenaries in the entities and the activists of each region and city.
The responsibility of the labor federations in this context is enormous. They must learn from the mistake of sabotaging the general strike last June. They must retake the leadership of this process and organize a plan of national and united action to join and set the working class and toiling masses of the country in struggle in case the current government or the one that will enter office in January threatens any right of our class.
In struggle and in the streets, the workers and the poor people will be able to stop the attacks on their rights. Just as, in struggle and in the streets we may stop any setback of our democratic rights.
To build a political alternative of our class
The PSTU believes, on the other hand, that in this necessary struggle to defend our rights we must and we will take steps to organize a political alternative for the country. To overthrow the system, capitalism, as it is and to build a socialist society. A society where inequality and injustice end, where everyone has dignified work and lives. A society where all wealth is distributed among those who work and all forms of discrimination, oppression and violence end.
We must learn with the betrayal and the mistakes of the PT. The alternative we need to build will not be built similarly or along this party, but against it. The PT is part of the establishment. We need a political organization of our class, against patrons, for it to be an instrument for the struggle of the workers and the toiling masses. This is the only way to do the revolution this country needs, to have a government of our class, of the workers and the toiling masses, one that works through popular councils, and changes our country and the lives of our people.
This is the reason to be of our party. We call all fighters in the country to join this struggle.
As the samba of Mangueira for next carnival says, we want “a country outside the frame” (“um país que não está no retrato”). A Brazil without social inequality, without prejudices and exploitation. “In the fight we meet” (“Na luta é que a gente se encontra”).
PSTU National Leadership
The Challenges of the Working Class before Bolsonaro’s Election
