The Left Front is in Parliament – Juan Marino (TPR)
The Left Front is in National Parliament. It got 4 national deputies, 6 regional deputies and 1 regional senator. It reached 1.300.000 votes all around the country. The FIT’s national deputies are Pablo Lopez, from Salta (member of PO, he got 19,11%) who got the second place in the province and won in the capital with 28,39%; Nestor Pitrola from Buenos Aires province (member of PO, he got 5,04%); Nicolás del Caño from Mendoza (member of PTS, he got 14,03% ); and Liliana Olivero from Córdoba (member of Izquierda Socialista, she got 7,48%). In addition, FIT conquered 1 regional deputy in Buenos Aires city, 1 in Buenos Aires province, 1 in Santiago del Estero, 3 in Mendoza and 1 regional senator in Mendoza. These parliamentarians will reinforce the seats FIT already has in Salta, Neuquén and Córdoba, so FIT has regional deputies in 7 provinces. In other provinces, FIT got important scores: Jujuy, 7,19%; Chaco, 4,48%; Formosa, 3,58%; Santa Cruz, 11,14%; Neuquén, 9,91%; Río Negro, 8,58%; Capital Federal, 5,65%. The election, as the primary in August proved, ratified that FIT is the 4th political national force and that can be an alternative in the whole nation.
This leads to a general conclusion: in two years, Left Front gained almost one million votes (from 500.000 to almost 1.500.000, a 200% increase) and, in those same two years, kirchnerism lost four million votes. In short, as our daily militancy shows, more than 25% of the votes lost by kirchnerism joined Left Front. Only this fact is a big indicator of the pre-revolutionary nature of the Argentine political situation.
If it’s true as Trotsky pointed, that “the consciousness of the own force is the most important element of the real force” the electoral score of Left Front means a huge empowerment for Argentine workers. We are not talking about divisions at the bottom and a anomic expression of popular uprising, but that the latter tendency found an independent political expression with an increasing mass support.
Against the parliamentary cretinism present in big layers of the self-claimed revolutionary worldwide, Engels himself stated 140 years ago: “On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand”. As in our times Nestor Pitrola, current deputy from FIT, stated “the vote for Left Front was an Argentinazo [name of the revolutionary popular uprising in 2001 in Argentina, TN] in the ballot box”. This is why those who fight for a second Argentinazo against Cristina, the right and the FAP called to vote FIT in this election. The historic election of Left Front is, out of doubt, one key element of the pre-revolutionary situation in Argentina and Latin America.
In this regard, it’s important to underline that we are not talking about winning a major in Colonia Santa Rosa as it was posed in August. In only two months the political situation evolved and with 19%, PO only needed 1% more to be the first political force in Salta province. Thus, Partido Obrero really has the chance to win regional elections in 2015 and became Salta government. #SaltaLaTroska [Salta, the trostkist, TN], as social networks called it, shows that it’s possible to have 1 of the 24 provinces ruled by the argentine left. It means the the struggle for a workers government is timely and that the historical period opened by Russian Revolution is ongoing. A real alternative example arise against Syriza front populism in Greece. Workers in Argentina and worldwide should note this very important issue. Against capitalist bankruptcy, the exit is on the left.
THE CHALLENGES AFTER GETTING INTO THE PARLIAMENTS: FOR A FIT’S CANDIDATE TO THE PRESIDENCY OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES; THE LEGISLATIVE SEATS SHOULD WORK WITH OPEN AND REGULAR ASSEMBLIES
The achievement of being in national and regional parliaments raise immediate challenges.
In first place, to put FIT as a clear alternative in this political crisis, fighting for a left exit to the pre-revolutionary situation. In this regard, to propose a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies is essential, because it shows an alternative against those who promote a “parliamentary coup” and against “institutions defensors” [the opposition in argentina is discussing if to fight for this presidency or give it to kirchnerism as this position is part of the presidential succession, TN], as against kirchernism, which is internally struggling about the candidate to replace Cristina in 2015. Kirchnerism only offers right wingers from PJ [peronist party, TN] and no left wing candidate. The reason is to call workers to run their own candidate, their own governamental alternative to 2015, against all the bourgeois parties.
In second place, FIT’s legislative seats have to promote the struggle for all the popular claims and the discussion among the fighters about every political crisis. That’s why the TPR and the Coordinating Committee in Defense of Left Front state that they should work with open and regular assemblies, as Altamira (PO´s leading member) itself propose for the regional deputy in Neuquén. There should be open, so all the fighters can participate and raise their claims to the deputies. For instance, to allow high school students organized in CUES [students trade union, TN] who are fighting against the application of NESC reform, ask Marcelo Ramal [elected regional deputy in Buenos Aires city, PO’s leading memeber, TN] to present a law project with this aim; or to allow Barrio Charrúa’s piqueteros to present a project against the shutdown of their popular kitchen and for the claims of all the piquetero movement in Buenos Aires. There should be open also, to call the fighters to discuss the political crisis inside national and regional Parliament, and to vote political positions in order to have an independent political intervention. And there should be regular also, in order to put FIT’s deputies under the popular discussion and control, in contrast with bourgeois deputies that make agreements hiding themselves of workers opinions.
With this idea, we propose a campaign of political statements for a FIT’s candidate for the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies in order to be up to the task, and to make the parliamentarians work with open and regular assemblies. For this reason, is very good that Pitrola and Altamira already said publicly that FIT should propose a candidate for the presidency of the Chamber. That was neither the case of PTS nor Izquierda Socialista. Let’s go for a FIT statement. This shows also that the open and regular assemblies to promote popular discussion about FIT deputies is timely and necessary. We are not proposing an imperative method: each deputy and each party won the right to vote what they believe. But what we claim is to have these assemblies and vote in them so, when vote in Parliament arrives, each deputy and each party will have in mind the consequences of their decision and to allow the comrades to state their opinion and discuss it with FIT supporters previously. We don’t want to be surprised with a vote in Congress. We want each legislative seat to work with all the democratic mechanisms to face any crisis and solve it within FIT framework.
The TPR and the Coordinating Committee in Defense of Left Front will strive to push FIT as far as possible, to make it a push factor for the struggles, for the political organization of the exploited, and a political alternative in the pre-revolutionary situation in Argentina. With this method we want to clarify the strategy of the left which claim itself “anti-capitalist”: a powerhouse in the revolutionary struggle for a workers government as FIT promise, or a left speech to dissolve behind popular front as European anticapitalism is. The Left Front, in this regard, has a responsibility not only with the Argentine working class but with workers worldwide. The TPR and the Coordinating Committee in Defense of Left Front, from Argentina (through Salta) to Greece, fight for a workers government.
Juan Marino, on behalf of the Central Committee of Tendencia Piquetera Revolucionaria (TPR)