A vacuum still to be filled
THE JUNE 5 general election saw the worst defeat for
the Partido Socialista Português (PS) in more than two decades. The
right-wing Partido Social Democrata (PSD) and Partido Popular (PP)
together secured a governing majority, with 39% and 12% respectively.
Abstentions, however, hit 41%, the biggest in recent
history. This was an expression of the huge anger against the
establishment parties and their social war against the workers and the
poor. It also shows that important layers have not found on the left a
programme or party that could serve as a vehicle for their opposition to
harsh austerity.
Electoral support for Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc –
BE) plummeted, with half of its votes lost (from 9.8% in 2009 to 5.2%),
and its 16 MPs cut to eight. Its leaders are blaming ‘a swing to the
right’. However, it was really a reaction by its electorate to BE’s move
to the right. This was symbolised by BE’s support for Manuel Alegre, the
PS candidate in January’s presidential elections, by BE MPs voting for
last year’s Greece ‘bailout’, and the caution of its MEPs towards the
imperialist intervention in Libya.
The lack of will to build a serious workers’ and
youth front with the Partido Comunista Português (PCP) against the
avalanche of attacks, combined with its turn towards the PS (when anger
is growing against the PS), weakened BE considerably.
Without a radical change of policy, BE could face
meltdown. The youth, who saw BE as a pole of attraction, will look for
alternative ways of self-organisation, like the Geração à Rasca
(desperate generation) movement. While the PCP has a stable base of
electors and influence among the trade unions, the BE’s grassroots
membership is smaller, its influence in the working class more limited.
As a result, BE is more susceptible to its electoral support, with very
volatile results, especially now when the intervention of the troika
(EU, ECB and IMF) demands a bold response from the left.
As for the PCP, the result represents virtual
stagnation. In the context of the biggest crisis in living memory, and
of explosive mobilisations by workers and young people, the party’s vote
actually went down slightly.
It still has 16 MPs but the PCP is not offering a
real plan of militant action to defeat the troika’s programme, and
rejecting the payment of the debt. A clear programme of fighting demands
is needed to grasp the desire of the majority for action, and for a
society based on the needs of all and not the diktats of the market. As
long as the PCP continues to consider socialism as a distant abstraction
not linked to the concrete debate on what to do now, and prefers
patriotic rhetoric to arguing for international working-class
solidarity, it risks a decline like the other so-called ‘communist’
parties in Europe.
The new right-wing government is charging its
batteries for one of the biggest programmes of capitalist attacks in
Portugal’s history. This will not pass by without massive resistance. In
this context, lessons need to be learnt from these elections to start
the process of offering a basis for a new impetus in the future struggle
of all sectors of the left in Portugal.
Mauro Kato, Socialismo Revolucionario (CWI Portugal)
|