By Veronica O´kelly
On November 15 throughout Brazil, Prefeitos (mayors) and Vereadores (councilors) will be elected. This year´s municipal elections represent a great opportunity to strike a blow against the Bolsonaro government and the ultra-right group that celebrated electoral victories just 2 years ago and is in decline today in. In Belem do Pará, the PSOL, with Edmilson Rodrigues as prefeito and Silvia Letícia as vereadora, we see a great space for the left after years of policies against the working class and the poor.
Municipal elections
The international scene with the upsurge of mobilization, the electoral defeat of the right in Bolivia, the historical participation with mobilization in favor of liquidating the Pinochet Constitution in Chile and the important process of mobilization in the United States that put Trump on the verge of the abyss, is undoubtedly fuel for the national stage. The conjuncture of capitalist crisis and pandemic shows how the peoples respond with struggle and rebellion because they are not willing to lose in this war.
From one end of the country to the other, we see how the disastrous period in which the ultra-right was emboldened and elected deputies, governors and President Jair Bolsonaro himself, is left behind. In a short time, they proved not to be the solution to the great social problems that the people demanded, and that in the face of mass disappointment with the PT project, they believed in the siren songs of the historic right-wing disguised as “new politics.” That is why the weakening of the right was not long in coming and today in the main cities of the country, its candidates are falling behind.
A striking example of this is the phenomenon caused by Boulos’s candidacy against the Bolsonarista Russomano in São Paulo, placing the concrete possibility of entering the 2nd round against the current right-wing prefect and ex-Bolsonarista Bruno Covas. Boulos collects the vote to the left in the counry´s main city, differentiating himself from the candidacies of the progressive parties of the regime such as the PT, PCdoB or the PDT-PSB alliance. To defeat Bolsonaro and the right wing at the polls and in the streets, the path is to raise the program of struggle of our class, of women, the youth, indigenous peoples, Black people, the LGBT community and the poor.
#AgoraéEla
In Belém, the candidacy of Edmilson Rodrigues (PSOL) leads the polls with close to 40% support, far from the second candidate with 13%. The possibility of winning in the 1st round is on the table because the people are tired of so many years of policies against them and massively support a candidate that faces the austerity and hunger plans proposed by the right-wing candidates and represented by the current provincial and municipal governments.
It is in this scenario that Silvia Letícia, a working woman, teacher, president of Sintepp Belém (the city’s teachers’ union) and leader of Socialist Struggle, also in PSOL, heads a candidacy for vereadora that grows day by day and strengthens. It is a radical left candidacy that places feminist, LGBT, eco-socialist, anti-racist struggles, teachers´ and all workers´ struggles as priorities. She will be the voice of all these struggles in the vereadores chamber and she will place her seat at the service of all of them.
Internationalist brigade of the ISL From the International Socialist League (ISL) and our Brazilian section, Alternativa Socialista-PSOL, we decided to support and strengthen her candidacy in these elections. With an internationalist brigade, as our tradition teaches us, we put at its service the greatest militant efforts to conquer this seat, which will mean an important advance for the construction of the socialist and anti-capitalist political alternative that we are building.
Those of us who build the ISL are on the path of strengthening a powerful international revolutionary organization, which is a true synthesis of the different and diverse experiences and traditions of building the revolutionary party throughout the world. In Brazil we have been advancing in this sense with the comrades of Luta Socialista-PSOL and together with our Brazilian section Alternativa Socialista-PSOL, we are working together to respond more strongly to the different political processes that have been taking place. It is an important and gratifying challenge that lies ahead and we are convinced that we will emerge strengthened from this experience and with more strength to turn everything around and build a great revolutionary organization in Brazil and the entire world.