On March 2nd we participated in the Arruada called by the S.T.O.P. union in Lisbon. We used the occasion to speak with comrade Gil García, who has a long history in the Trotskyist movement and is one of the leaders of the Socialist Alternative Movement (MAS) of Portugal, an organization with which the International Socialist League (ISL) has initiated relations. Next, we transcribe the conversation.
Interviewe by Rubén Tzanoff for the ISL
Why are there early elections on March 10?
Next Sunday’s elections are the result of a specific conjuncture that altered the normal electoral calendar, since the four-year cycle of the Legislature was not completed. The government still continues, but as management, since in November 2023 Prime Minister Antonio Costa (Socialist Party of Portugal – PS) resigned due to allegations of corruption in his close circle and the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Souza (Social Democratic Party – PSD), imposed the criterion of calling for early elections. However, beyond the allegations of corruption, what got the government into trouble was the social struggle, in particular the struggle of education, which took on an unexpected dimension when it carried out massive actions in Lisbon and proposed an indeterminate strike, something that had not been used for years. Since the Portuguese Revolution, the unions, influenced by the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), had only held strikes of one or two days and sent activism home. The people were tired, that is why in an assembly, from the grassroots, the indeterminate strike was not immediately proposed. However, as the uproar was much greater than the reflux, it ended up being approved. There was a government measure that radicalized the teachers and rushed everything; they tried to impose that the City Councils and the Municipal Chambers could introduce in teaching graduates outside the public service examination. Due to the difficulties imposed by the pandemic, there were activists and leaders who proposed a strike without being indeterminate, but, in December 2022, the indeterminate strike was approved. It was a process that lasted for months and gained such strength that it influenced the whole country. The merit of the young leadership of the Union S.TO.P. was that it carried out the struggle that the assembly had democratically decided. From the meetings via ZOOM, they moved to face-to-face meetings, a Strike Committee was formed and a broad call was made to all the schools to actively participate. It was a tremendous success from which massive demonstrations were held, in December 2022 with 20,000 people and in January 2023 with 100,000 people in the streets of Lisbon, which, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, is gigantic. That conjuncture of struggle brought to reality elements of a pre-revolutionary situation since there were: struggles, massive mobilizations, strike committees outside the traditional unions, a young union overflowing the traditional union bureaucracy and massive participation of the grassroots. A new cycle of struggles was opened which continues to this day, encompassing all public sector workers of the State, doctors, nurses, judicial workers and even poorly paid policemen, something which the far-right is trying to capitalize on. The radicalization of the teachers opened a new scenario which was part of the Government’s deterioration. The anticipated call emulates the actions of Pedro Sanchez (PSOE) in Spain, which also had the intention of avoiding a greater attrition that would derive in a collapse of the regime. All these are the elements that motivated the electoral advance, not only the denunciations, as usually presented.
The polls show different results, what is your opinion?
The central element is paradoxical; although there are struggles, the right may win. We will know on March 11 because the polls are not very reliable, but there is a possibility that the coalition of the traditional right wing, called Democratic Alliance (Social Democratic Party -PSD-, Social Democratic Center -CDS- and Monarchist Popular Party), whose candidate is Luis Montenegro, will obtain the majority. He could achieve this with the support of the new expressions of the far-right: Liberal Initiative (IL) represented by Rui Rocha and Chega de André Ventura. It is possible that the Portuguese PS of the government, whose candidate is Pedro Nuno Santos, may be slightly ahead of the right wing, but it may not be enough to form a government with the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU) whose candidate is Paulo Raimundo (PCP and the Ecologist Party “The Greens”) and the Left Bloc (BE) headed by Mariana Mortágua. Previously they had the majority, but this time it is more difficult because the right and the far-right are capitalizing politically on the discontent. This is because the revolutionary left has not gained electoral weight in mass sectors. It does have weight in the social struggle, in the trade union, feminist and anti-racist areas, but it has not obtained a strong electoral expression. The polls also indicate that the BE and Livre could grow, although at first glance it would not be enough to form a majority. We know the young Livre party for its program and its practices. It is a division of the Bloc, where we were also working together (us from a more leftist position and them from a more moderate position of support to the government) that is why we call it PS II, although it is not seen as such by the masses. In the 2019 elections the Portuguese PS won, but did not have an absolute majority. In 2022, the PS did obtain an absolute majority and then disposed of the Bloc and the PCP. In 2024, reaching the leftist majority seems more complicated. This contradiction is also seen in other countries and here it would not be the first time to happen after 50 years of alternation seen by the masses as left and right. Whether the previous polls are confirmed or not, there will be struggles which intensity will depend on the austerity that the government wants to carry out, which I do not know if it would reach the depth it has in Milei’s Argentina.
At the time the Left Bloc raised expectations, what is its current situation and what policy does it deploy?
We from the MAS were militants in the Bloc, of which I am co-founder, for almost twelve years. We were the revolutionary left wing, the other three groups that made up the organization, which were reformist, imposed the dynamic of building broad parties, sort of following Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, which claim to be anti-capitalist and leftist, without being completely so, and which are linked to the most recent feminist and anti-racist movements. The CP maintains a party model that remains bureaucratically centralized. In short, the Bloc was a European forerunner of the neo-reformism that was later seen in other parts of the world. If the phenomenon is well analyzed, the Bloc is one of the first formations with these characteristics, born in Portugal in 1999 before other expressions such as Syriza, Podemos, PSOL and NPA in France, due to specific circumstances that have their roots in organizations that come from the Portuguese Revolution, a subject that is not yet relevant to address in this interview. Thus the Bloc was born, as a very successful electoral formation at the beginning, where the far right did not exist and did not enter the Parliament. The Bloc reached 19 deputies, which later fell to 5 (2022) with the loss of about 300,000 votes. Something similar happened with the Communist Party in relation to the loss of representatives, although in a smaller proportion. In the next elections this could be reversed with the Bloc obtaining more deputies than the PCP. Likewise, the limitations of the Bloc are very great, because it began to collaborate with the PS and with the central system, something that the right wing took advantage of to present itself as the opposition. To a large extent, the Bloc and the Communist Party are responsible for opening the doors to the far-right, although there are sectors that do not see it with this depth, it is not a mere coincidence that the far-right has emerged after the existence of the “Geringonça” (1).
What position has the MAS adopted in view of the election?
This year, for different reasons, we did not run in the elections of March 10, but we are not disregarding them and we have called to vote critically for the Left Bloc, where in spite of its drift of support to the government, there is still a sector of the more progressive in the country with which it is necessary to maintain a dialogue. We plan to return to the electoral arena with the vote for the European Parliament, which will take place between June 6 and 9.
You have had a split. There is a group that claims to be MAS. What can you tell us about this?
The rise of the struggle in education and the weight of the new democratic and combative unionism, exemplified in S.TO.P., opened a profound discussion of social scope that also occurred in our party. And, as it usually happens, wings, different sensitivities and tendencies emerged. Even so, we did not expect a new rupture so quickly, to such an extent that it had an impact even on some journalists who were of the opinion that the MAS was moving towards political progress, even with parliamentary representation. We saw that the struggle was opening space for the emergence of a new political expression broader than the MAS itself, trying to come together with dozens and dozens of activists in a new, larger political project, of which our party would be a fundamental part. This group, mainly some cadres who have nothing to do with the founding and trajectory of MAS, wanted a small, sectarian, self-proclaiming and, in my opinion, quite aggressive towards the vanguard. They did not understand that it is not the same to be a small group with little influence than to undertake responsibilities in the leadership of mass struggles that force to take new challenges. It is a central issue since our comrades of MAS play a decisive role in the struggle, in the process of the new trade unionism and the ongoing experience of S.TO.P. The projects could not continue unchanged, it was necessary to debate and make changes, but these comrades did not see them necessary, possibly because of their little experience in party building intimately linked to the class struggle. In addition, the group was encouraged by the UIT-CI, an international sector that is also sectarian and self-proclaimed, to take the party from within. How? By presenting itself publicly as MAS, using the party emblems and going beyond the limits of any fraternal relationship by appealing to the Courts of the regime to dispute the legality, which up to now still recognizes us as the legitimate leadership of the party, a matter that will be legally and definitively resolved in the next period. Splitting does not cause happiness, every rupture implies a blow, but we will get ahead and we have drawn conclusions on the mistake of having nominated Renata Cambra, of strong militant intermittence, as political figure of the MAS in the elections.
Moving on to another topic, a historic anniversary is coming up: April 25 will be the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution. What reflections can you make about it?
As Nahuel Moreno characterized it, it was a great revolution that opened a new situation in Europe. It anticipated the end of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, which lasted one more year until 1975. This was important in the Iberian Peninsula because that country is the only one with which we have land borders. It was also the prelude to the uprisings that put an end to Stalinism in Eastern Europe. In our party, MAS, we have the immense luck that there are comrades like Joao Pascoal, myself and other dear comrades, organized or not, who preserve the memory and the experience of having lived that immense Revolution, who resist the ups and downs of the political situations, being optimistic with the struggles that may come before the next government and the possibilities of building a strong revolutionary current, as we have been on other occasions, in which we led large mobilizations and had good elections. Comparing moments, the worrying thing is that the far-right is capitalizing politically and is doing it mainly in the youth, a process identified by sociologists and that I perceive as a high school teacher. With the Portuguese Revolution, a turn of youth sectors towards the different expressions of the left was expressed. Now the youth is mobilizing for feminist, environmental and social causes, there is social polarization and mobilizations, where there is a dispute with the neo-reformists, but where we can also develop and begin a new period of party building in the class struggle.
1 “Geringonça” is used as a reference to the left-wing pact that led António Costa to be head of the Government of Portugal in 2015, until the Portuguese PS won the absolute majority in the elections of 2022.