We reproduce an article published in Bandera Roja, organ of the Cosata Rican PRT
CRITICAL SUPPORT FOR ALL FRENTE AMPLIO CANDIDACIES
We revolutionaries believe that in false bourgeois democracy, social inequality, oppression and the destruction of the environment imposed by the capitalist system will never be resolved at its roots. This requires a social revolution that establishes worker’s and people‘s power. For the PRT, this democracy of and for the rich is designed so that they themselves, with their enormous economic resources, control of the mass media and restrictions of electoral legislation, take turns in the exercise of power.
Despite the above, it would be a serious sectarian mistake to turn our backs on this event in reality, since, when faced with elections, working people are always asked the key question: who should govern? While it is true, the electoral scenario is not our privileged terrain, as opposed to workers’ and people‘s struggles, and our modest party is not even registered electorally, it is our obligation to provide an answer to this key question in any electoral process.
Therefore, we express our support at a national level for all the Frente Amplio (FA) ballots, based on the following considerations.
- The FA is a party independent of the parties of the big rich, and today includes the bulk of the honest and fighting sectors of the popular movement. Despite our programmatic and strategic discrepancies, it is significant for the consciousness of the popular masses to express a political break with the parties of the bourgeoisie, by voting for the FA.
- In the current situation, it is essential to seek the broadest unity of action in what corresponds to the coincidences that we have to confront the neoliberal attack led by the disastrous Chaves government and in general against all bourgeois parties, which, no matter how much electoral demagoguery they use to differentiate themselves, they agree on the government’s anti-popular agenda. It is essential to defend the rights, social guarantees and threatened public services in terms of health, pensions, decent housing, water, electricity, telecommunications, which they intend to dismantle and privatize. We agree in the battle against the 4 x 3 (12 hour) slave day promoted by the parties of the bourgeoisie. We also find the FA’s initiative to promote the dissolution of the Intelligence and Security Directorate (DIS)[1] , the core of the repression they are plotting against the people, extremely progressive.
- Furthermore, we state that ours is a critical support because our call to vote for the FA does not ignore the fact that we disagree on underlying strategic and programmatic aspects that make our position radically anti-capitalist. For example, we call on the FA to review its support for the budgets, which include, in some cases, cuts to those same public services, or increases in resources for repressive forces. Likewise, we call on the comrades of the Frente Amplio not to support with their votes in the Legislative Assembly the continuity of external debt with scammers such as the IMF, World Bank, IDB or CABEI. For our part, we raise the non-payment of the foreign debt, as it, is a scam imposed by imperialist financial organizations, designed to suck resources and deteriorate public services. With the FA, we were in the common battle against the FTA with the United States, we called on you to promote the break with that colonialist treaty, which has allowed the unprecedented deepening of the neoliberal attack on our people. Finally, it is also necessary to emphasize the urgent need to give land to those who work it, promoting a profound agrarian reform, stopping the expansion of large estates and agro-industries that over-exploit national and migrant agricultural workers and destroy the environment, such as pineapple plantations and banana trees.
ONLY THE PEOPLE SAVE THE PEOPLE!
FIGHT, CREATE: PEOPLE’S POWER!
Executive committee
Partido Revolucionario de las y los Trabajadores (PRT)