The FIT-U can aim high
By Sergio García MST leadership / FIT-U National Coordination
The situation in the world, in our continent and in Argentina is one of continuity of a sanitary, economic and social crisis that weighs heavily on millions of working class families and the youth. The capitalists and their governments try to unload upon our backs the crisis that they generated. To that aim, they have their capitalist parties, the international credit organizations such as the IMF and the Paris Club to subjugate and indebt us, and the trade union bureaucracies that are their accomplices to pave the way for austerity.
In the face of this, winds of struggle are blowing in the world, with social and political polarization and new phenomena. In our region this was expressed with strong mobilizations and rebellions as in Chile and then in Colombia. And at the electoral level, the desire for change and the search to the Left were evident both in the Chilean constituent election and recently in Peru.
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On these grounds, our country is entering the months prior to the elections, with just over a month to the closing date for the presentation of alliances. In the midst of this, workers’ and popular struggles take place with our full support, as only the Left puts forward genuine demands because we do not have any commitment to the national and provincial governments that are responsible for the policies of austerity.
Strengthening a Left alternative
While we continue to build these processes and unite them in the streets, as we will once again do this Friday 11 in the Plaza de Mayo with various militant sectors of workers and the unemployed, the task of the moment is to strengthen a Left, anti-capitalist and socialist alternative. One with the strength to dispute strongly against the retrograde Right of Juntos por el Cambio and also against the Frente de Todos that, beyond it´s words, maintains the same economic structure of inequality and austerity that it inherited from the Macri administration, with the same corporations controlling food production, agribusiness polluting and privileging their profits, with the same destruction of our commons and stagnant wages that leads to more poverty.
In this task of being an alternative, our front, the FIT Unidad, has a great responsibility and at the same time a great political opportunity.
The responsibility to make a broad call to strengthen a unitary pole of the Left, so that an alternative voice can be heard, in favor of the working class, the popular majorities and the youth. And the opportunity we have is to show, by doing so, that we are truly committed to place the Left in the big dispute, without any kind of sectarianism.
Ongoing debates
In this sense, there are debates that have been taking place within the FIT-U and which will logically continue in the coming weeks. Being close to the electoral deadlines, one of them is on how to compose the lists.
In this regard, comrade Gabriel Solano, of the leadership of PO, responded days ago to an article of my authorship, questioning our proposal that opens the possibility of using primary elections if there is no agreement on the formation of the lists. In his reply, among other things, he says:
«In relation to the lists we have already indicated that we are in favor of agreeing on common lists, as in fact we have already done the vast majority of the times. The bases for an agreement already exist, and they are what allowed us to make unitary presentations in the 2019 elections (…) Putting together the list should allow a worker to say: those of us who defend the working class are in the FIT-U and the others lists defend the capitalists. A 4-list competition in the primaries blocks that possibility. It emphasizes an internal debate, which discredits us in the face of the workers … It is important that the Frente de Izquierda Unidad addresses the electoral issue without the petty perspective of inappropriate demands from the parties that comprise it “.
Such statements are not only very biased, but above all wrong.
On the one hand, because the basis of the 2019 agreement that Solano talks about has nothing to do with the reality of 2021. There is another situation in general and another situation of greater weakness of PO in particular, so there must necessarily be another agreement. To deny this is to deny reality.
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At the same time, if we have to go to the primaries, that does not have to be a synonym for a confrontation “that discredits us in front of the workers”. Quite the opposite. We could very well offer millions of workers the possibility of seeing all the proposals positively, opting and deciding among hundreds of thousands how our lists are made up towards the general elections, instead of doing it among a few people in a negotiation. In which there most likely will be no agreement, because some want to ignore the changes in reality of the last two years and claim “petty inappropriate demands”.
But, at the same time, there is an absence in PO´s response. It is the need to make a broad call to strengthen the unity of the entire Left, something clearly necessary to confront with more force all the capitalists parties and reformist variants.
The FIT Unidad, being the largest unity on the Left with a correct program, has the responsibility to call all parties and social and intellectual referents who want to strengthen a Left alternative with a correct program to join and be part. Until now, unfortunately the Nuevo MAS and the “Tendencia” of PO chose to divide without any kind of unitary proposal, only sectarian disqualifications towards our front. In the case of the Nuevo MAS and its referent, Manuela Castañeira, they try to show a supposed “renewal of the left”, which can never be achieved from a small and limited front together with Altamira and Ramal.
It is not with conjunctural agreements or with individualism that the situation of the Left can be renewed or overcome.
Our proposal
The MST in the FIT Unidad, proposes another path; to promote the greatest possible unity and guarantee all the necessary democratic mechanisms for this. In this sense we call Luis Zamora and AyL, the Nuevo MAS and the “Tendencia” of PO and also social, environmental, feminist, intellectual and human rights referents, all those who want to strengthen an anti-capitalist and socialist project, so that we open the path for a larger unity of the Left. And if we make the call for a broad unity there can be no obstacles that prevent it. Among many forces in general it is very difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at an agreed candidate list. Therefore, the possibility of a great primary of the entire left must also be opened, in which any gains made are distributed in proportion to the votes of each list and without any type of restrictions. So that it is the reality and the vote of thousands and thousands of workers and young people who settle the order of the lists towards the general elections of November. It is time that from the Left, and in particular from our Frente de Izquierda – Unidad, we rise to the level of the situation and the needs of millions of workers. Let’s open up this debate in depth.
There is no time to lose and much to gain if we truly unite the entire Left. It is the most useful and timely orientation to confront with greater strength all the capitalist parties and to strengthen the ongoing struggles and those to come. Let there be no excuses, no anti-democratic obstacles, no divisive rejections.