A million votes August 15, 2013, Prensa Obrera Originally published in Spanish: http://po.org.ar/po1281/2013/08/15/un-millon-de-votos/
By Gabriel Solano The Left Front received more than 900,000 votes last Sunday. We have grown 100 percent compared to the 2011 Paso (open simultaneous and obligatory primaries) and 50 percent in relation to the October general elections held the same year. Alongside these numbers the national homogeneity of these results must be highlighted in contrast to the dispersion of two years ago, when the minimum qualifying vote was attained in only a third of the national territory. This time we qualified in all races. Momentum was maintained from the 2011 vote for the Left Front and fed into a nationwide campaign. We put forward not only the pressing demands of the masses, but also developed a clear and detailed explanation of our political strategy. We positioned the Left Front in the context of the struggle for power, on a class struggle basis and within the class struggle itself. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Photo and caption >> http://po.org.ar/po1281/files/2013/08/bunker-capital-2-300x199.jpg The Left Front receives the news of the great election results. Guillermo Kane, Myriam Bregman, Juan Carlos Giordano, Juliana Garcia, Jose Castillo, Marcelo Ramal, Jorge Altamira, Nestor Pitrola, Christian Castillo and Gabriel Claudio Solano Dellecarbonara at the press conference Sunday night. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Photo and caption >> With Salta at the head (18% of the vote in the city of Salta, with 11% province-wide), in Jujuy and in the oil belt of Santa Cruz (with almost 10%). There were remarkable leaps: up to 5% in Formosa, in Mendoza to 7.5%, to 6% in Rio Negro and 8% in Neuquén (where four weeks ago, we had obtained above 5% in the local elections). We won in Cordoba the ability to elect a national deputy [in the coming October elections]. In Buenos Aires [province], where the polls [had earlier] minimized our votes, we have enough to elect at least one national deputy, a fighting chance to elect a second, and the chance to enter the provincial legislature and various municipal deliberative councils. In addition to all of this we have the vote in the City of Buenos Aires, where our front had to face numerous expressions of the left (democratizing and tailing) groups, all of whom met unmitigated defeat. Meaning The great result obtained throughout the country brings together two questions, but, above all, is a manifestation of capitalist bankruptcy, the depletion of late bourgeois nationalism and, above all, the understanding of the historical situation by our side and the immense work of delimitation with Kirchnerism, which attempted to inaugurate a new era (the Kirchnerist Argentina), in the realm of ideas and in the class struggle. The front does not owe its progress to an agglomeration of forces, but rather to political clarity in its development and to the method we use to address our contradictions. It is a united front under specific conditions and at the same time, a landmark in the politics of the socialist revolution. Above and beyond 'frontism', understood in a vulgar or opportunistic manner, we have emphasized the strategic objectives that guide our work in the Left Front. Our front is developing in the midst of a new political collapse and the threat of another [debt] default -- that is, of a political transition that once again places on the agenda the fate of capitalist society, but this time with a rising revolutionary force. The construction of the Left Front does not respond, on our part, to a question of 'practicality', but to careful work in preparation for the working class to assume its historic tasks. We find ourselves in the maelstrom, the vortex that is shaking the majority of the peoples [world-wide] and we raise the question of the leadership of the vortex. In view of the major crises ahead, the face that we have given to the left attains strategic significance. Consciousness of the working class The election results also allow for another conclusion to be drawn: the importance of a systematic socialist political agitation and propaganda. While in the past, the elections were a factor of the integration of the left into the regime, now we are using them as a factor for the development of class consciousness of the proletariat and the exploited. From the speakers platform at the last May 1st rally, we emphasized that "we are targeting the consciousness of our working class." We detailed explicit solutions as a way out of the crisis and towards the meeting of popular aspirations. So, we put together a very creative audiovisual campaign: while the bourgeois parties were replaced by advertising companies, the parties integrating the Left Front, with limited resources, were again able to produce more effective ads and spots compared to our political and social antagonists. What's Next Many Kirchnerists have the illusion that the defeat they have suffered is episodic, as they re-interpreted after the fact, also mistakenly, in 2009. The decline of the K goes back to the 2008 crisis (it was the recovery that was episodic). The second phase of the campaign will raise the issue of the crisis acutely and with it the great question: if it is to be paid for by the workers or the capitalists. The Left Front will dedicate its campaign slogans to explaining the scope of the crisis and the need for mobilization and direct action, for the capitalists to pay for the crisis by means of a change in power. Our struggle to place left-wing deputies in Congress and in the provincial legislatures will be linked to this central issue. [See province by province map of election results: http://po.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FIT_MAPA_2013-668x1024.jpg See http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=18952 [Note: the Left Front is composed at present of three left-wing Argentine parties, the Partido Obrero (http://po.org.ar), the Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (http://www.pts.org.ar/), and Izquierda Socialista (http://www.izquierdasocialista.org.ar/)] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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