Argentina: ten reasons to vote for the left that unites

In a few days the primary elections will take place and the old parties and their mass media will fill your head with lies and promises that, as always, they will not fulfil. Against the hypocrisy of the politicians that are an abyss away from your diffucult daily life, here we present to you ten reasons to vote for the left that unites; the FIT-Unidad front that we are part of and promote from the MST.

1. The left that unites deserves your support and vote

The first reason to ask you to vote for us is more than clear: this year, with the FIT-Unidad, we conformed the greatest unity of the left in a long time, uniting the majority of the main parties of the anti-capitalist and socialist left. We did so, integrating other groups and social public figures from different struggles and processes. This unity, that has been demanded by thousands and thousands, is finally acheived and now we must strengthen it. The most immediate way to do so is by voting for it this August 11 throughout the country.

2. With intellectuals and diverse social public figures

This great unity of the left is also supported, as shown in a public declaration, by a long list of independent socially committed intellectuals, outstanding cultural sectors, university academics, social investigators, public figures, of the ecosocialist movement and human rights movements, of alternative independent media and other militant sectors that are active against the reigning system. A broad spectrum that supports and celebrates the conformation of our front, proving the importance of having united.

3. With the influence of combative unionism

A great number of leaders of the fighting working class and combative unionism that is emerging throughout the country also integrates our front and calls to vote for us in another public declaration. Against the rotten union bureaucracy, accomplice of the austerity measures and the bosses, the coherent struggle from below in every workplace, both in the state and the private sector is reflected in our front, like the youth that suffers precarious work and has a prominent presence in our lists. We also reflect and represent the struggle to build a new class based, democratic and combative leadership of the working class, as a central and strategic motor of the radical changes we need.

4. With the green wave, we united the left without lowering the green handkerchief

No other list has the enormous and powerful feminist and LGBT wave that crosses the country, and of which we are protagonists, as well represented in its proposals and candidacies. We are proud of the fact that thousands of comrades that took part, with hundreds of thousands of others, in the great days of struggle for legal abortion, for effective Integral Sex Educuation and for the separation of the Church and the state, are part of the FIT-Unidad. Far from the opportunistic, self-oriented and sectarian vices of the NMAS, in this front that we built between the FIT and the MST, we promote the collective struggle from below with thousands of comrades. And, unlike the PJ, we do not mix the green and blue handkerchiefs, setting our struggle aside, but join the left to fight for our rights with the green and anticlerical orange.

5. To avoid getting burned and continue tied to the IMF

It is a lie that you only have two options, “Macrism or the PJ of Fernández-Fernández”. That is what they want you to believe so you do not contribute to a better alternative and continue having to choose between ones who apply austerity and other who also apply austerity, between millionaire businessmen or bureaucrats turned into millionaires, between politicians that got wealthy today and politicians that got wealthy yesterday. It is important that you know you have the capacity to overcome this binary, highly conformist, lesser evil and useless manoeuvre. When you hear Macri or Fernandez saying that both of them will continue with the IMF, you must remember that you do not have to choose between them, you can vote differently and in favour of your rights. But that can only be done with the left that unites.

6. To turn everything around without sterile possibilism

Do not trust those who invite you to stay immobile, to not rebel, to accept that everything continue as it is. Old politics is full of professionals, specialists in quieting your will, experts in convincing you that only some things can be changed, that that is all that is possible. A entirely reactionary ideology that wants to use your just anger against Macri to channel it toward their own electoral interests and then, if they govern, also apply austerity and repress. Those sectors must also be rejected by supporting and strengthening a radical, leftist and united project. A project of thousands who believe that everything can be changed and affirm that it is utopian to believe that things will get better within this system.

7. Because we have a program

It is an alternative to the current ones and it is the only one that responds to the social needs of the majority, beginning with affirming that the big industrial businessmen, the soy producers and the big corporations that loot and destroy our common goods must pay for this crisis. A program that also proposes ending with the immoral theft of the external debt and using those millions in resources to solve our needs. An integral program that ends with the theft of privatized companies and prioritizes public and essential services under social control, prohibiting lay-offs and price hikes, placing every company that closes down or fires people under workers’ management. Our program defends and prioritizes public health care and education, ending with the scam of the private contracts. And we will end capital flight through the nationalization of the banks and foreign trade.

8. Because we are always where we have to be

You saw us, you see us and you will continue seeing us in every struggle, in every demand of the workers, the people, the feminist movement and the youth. We are the opposite of the traditional politicians, that is, millionaires and opportunists, who only show up for the elections and jump from list to list. We are workers doing politics, who live off our wage, participating and changing reality with our struggles. Saying and doing when there are elections the same things that we say and do all the time, with the coherence of those who militate with the conviction of a socialist project in which we believe in and fight for.

9. For what is coming, strengthen the unity of the left

With hundreds of thousands of votes across the country that make our strength be felt towards the general elections. The utility of your vote on August 11 is this: strengthening a unitary, leftist and alternative political project that does not negotiate or change its convictions, that goes all the way for our rights and that will use the strength we gain in the primaries to prepare for the general elections, where we will fight for more representatives of the left and for this unity of the left to be well-positioned for the upcoming processes and struggles. So we can continue insisting with the improvement of the unity we achieved in this election, to take the pending and necessary task of becoming a real alternative to every space of the political, union and social struggle.

10. Because we have a socialist and anti-capitalist project

We built it every day, in every struggle, in every workplace, neighborhood, university and high school. We know in the MST in the FIT-Unidad that we have to prepare for many challenges despite the elections. Coming out of the electoral battle stronger, bigger and more extended is a possible and necessary task to continue fighting, because our proposals have the horizon of achieving a government of the working class. We do not struggle for less than that target, putting all our efforts into achieving it. We do it in unity and at the same time building our party, the MST, which has a place for you. We invite you to vote us in the primary elections and to join us to make the left that unites and our anticapitalist, anticlerical, working, feminist, internationalist and socialist project bigger and stronger.

Sergio García