A year marked by economic crisis, political events and social struggles is coming to an end, closing with a historic popular mobilization caused by the World Cup victory. With the passing of the days, this passion of the working people will give way to the return of normal life, which will bring new social struggles and political disputes, all within the framework of a country in the midst of an austerity plan agreed with the IMF. From the FITU we have the responsibility to continue raising an alternative and at the same time to rethink how to move forward to attract millions of workers and youth. This is what we aim to refer to in this article at the closing of this year.
By Sergio García
Too much right wing in the country
This phrase becomes fully valid when we daily see Bullrich, Macri, Larreta, Morales and Milei himself being presented as possible presidential candidates. All of them express the most retrograde aspects of capitalist politics. Some more underhandedly and others unbridled, like Milei, foreshadow a country with a government that makes greater attacks on social rights and a social economic model for a privileged minority, everything at the service of the business corporate castes, for whom they work every day.
This repudiable right wing, which we confronted in the streets when it governed and whom from the left we will confront again if they do so next year, does not have the monopoly of the right-wing economic recipe. Because the truth is that the government of the Frente de Todos has taken a great part of its agenda and applies it every day with Massa as super-minister. As it has happened so many times and in different countries, those who claimed to take over the government against the right wing end up applying austerity plans and are the envy of the defeated right wingers. Thus, the government of the Frente de Todos of Alberto, Cristina and Massa will go down in history as the front that reaffirmed the ties with the IMF for many years. When we see them traveling every three months to accept the IMF revisions is when it becomes clear that there is a lot of right wing in the country, and not all of it is in the opposition, this evil that weighs heavily on the ideologues of the media corporation of the October group, and who try to hide it.
No CFK, the dilemma of the disappointed sectors
A little more than three years of the Frente de Todos in government leave no room for doubt that those who came to get us out of the worst of Macrismo have not done so. In fact, by giving legitimacy to the agreement with the IMF and implementing a strong austerity plan, they have reaffirmed the red threads of the Macrista inheritance. The same can be said about their privileged association with the extractive and destructive corporations of our common goods and the official favors to agribusiness, which they were supposed to confront.
It is in this context that originated more poverty, social inequality and loss of sovereignty, that discontent grew and so did the political crisis within the government coalition. And finally we reached December, where nobody believes in promises anymore and CFK decided to announce that she will not be a candidate. This provoked a shock that will have consequences within her front that will end up with 2023 candidates which will be more aligned with the consensus with the big CEOs and the opposition, a course that CFK herself explained in her previous act in La Plata.
In this way, thousands of disappointed workers and young people see the future with uncertainty. We call on them to reflect on this moment together with the left. To realize that it is of no political use to continue supporting a front that applies a brutal adjustment and that is heading towards a defeat built on its own decisions of economic and social continuity. We invite you, men and women, at this key moment, and in the face of so many right-wingers, to encourage yourselves to strengthen the left and to be part of this so necessary political objective.
The situation of the FIT-U: what to do to move forward?
This whole political context between the government and the right-wing opposition clearly shows that, in our country, there is only one political voice as an alternative to all the parties of the capitalist regime, both the traditional ones and new variants like the libertarians. And it is our left front, with its anti-capitalist and socialist program and its sharp opposition to the whole austerity and surrender plan. We are in fact the only coherent voice in favor of the cause of the workers and the youth.
It is from this position that we fairly won and from the left unity we have built, that we need to start not to be content with what has been achieved but to take it as a starting point. Beyond the political and social ground conquered by our front, the worst thing we could do is to be satisfied in a conservative way with the point reached and at the same time not see that there is much to correct, improve and new roads to travel.
As we have insistently said from the MST, and as we will continue to say, it is necessary to break the electoral and limited schemes that our front has, and once and for all take steps to make the leap to a unitary and superior political construction. Unfortunately, up to now, both the comrades of the PTS and PO are not considering these changes, thus wasting an exceptional situation where much more progress could be made.
On our part we propose once again that the FIT-U makes a leap towards a great common political movement, a party of democratically organized currents or tendencies, that meets weekly to debate and resolve on all the facts of reality and of the class struggle, where agreements of common intervention are tried before each political fact, each struggle and where logically the electoral issues are also dealt with.
We will continue to be the wing of the FIT-U that proposes these changes that include openness to referents of the social left, to intellectuals and to workers and young people who, disappointed, are looking for another road. There is no left and revolutionary politics if it does not permanently seek to influence the masses. And this political and social influence cannot be achieved without summoning or believing that by dealing only with ourselves millions will come to us. This is a strategic debate; we consider that with a clear programmatic goal for a government of the workers and for socialism, we have to build bridges so that new working class and popular sectors come closer, support the FIT-U and can also be a protagonist in some way.
The electoral dispute at the service of a political leap forward
While we develop these political debates that go far beyond the next election, we also have to respond to the electoral dispute that is coming and will start in the coming months, with electoral advances in several provinces.
That is why our front will have to advance in the internal debate on how to face this important political struggle of 2023. And to do it in the best way, the issue has to be approached by thinking about how to better dispute nationally, how to take advantage of all our forces and political references. It is not possible to reach a good result facing the electoral issue in an electoralist way, because as anti-capitalist and socialist left we have to give electoral fights but at the service of strengthening an alternative of struggle and for fundamental changes.
That is why we have to face the electoral debate taking into account an integrality of elements that logically include how to position the main public referents of the FIT-U so that they can make their best contribution. To see the electoral relations of force in national terms and in each province that will have early elections. To take into account the social weight of each party, its strength and mobilization capacity, its national extension and the need to make visible diverse profiles that together contribute much more to the FIT-U than if it pretends to hide ideas or political visions. By doing all this, better results can be achieved and they can be a prop for a political leap towards the country that will come after the elections.
With this vision, from the MST we are going to face each one of the electoral debates, with the conviction that there are conditions, if we do them well and thoroughly, to achieve provincial and national agreements for common lists of the FIT-U, and at the same time knowing that, if agreements are not reached because hegemonic visions mistakenly prevail, there are still the PASO to guarantee that everybody expresses themselves and that the unity of the front is maintained in the general elections. On our part, with the responsibility that gives us being one of the main and most extended national forces of the left and of the front, having contributed in 2021 around 30% of the votes of the FIT-U, having national and provincial political references to put at the disposal of the lists, and being a militant force with a working class, popular and youth structure, we are going to put all that potentiality at the disposal of a unitary electoral debate, which we hope this time can reach an agreement in each province and for the national PASO. Something that depends not only on us, but also on the political will that other parties do not pretend false hegemonisms far from reality.