Federico Fuentes
Antonio Peredo Leigue, a key leader of the Movement to Socialism in Bolivia wrote in an article published on argenpress.info on November 3, "In just one day, Sunday October 31, four elections in as many countries across Latin America, ratified something that is advancing irreversibly in this continent: change.
"Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile and Brazil, in spite of all the differences between one and another situation, showed an irrevocable popular decision to change the model that has overwhelmed [Latin Americans] for more than two decades."
The victory which has created the biggest stir was that of Encuentro Progresista-Frente Amplio-Nueva Mayoria (PM-FA-NM) in Uruguay. For the first time in 174 years, the position of president did not go to one of the two traditional parties, the National or Colorado parties, but instead to the Frente Amplio candidate Dr. Tabare Vazquez, a socialist and oncologist. Vasquez won more than 50% of the vote, ruling out the necessity for a second round run-off. PM-FA-NM also captured a majority in both houses of parliament, which has not been achieved since 1966.
The key force in the bloc is Frente Amplio, which unites socialists, communists, and ex-Tupemaros guerrilla fighters, with left Christian democrats and former members of the Blanco and Colorado parties.
Those that voted for the FA on October 31 were clearly rejecting the destruction ravaged on their country by neoliberalism. Concurrent with the elections, 62% of voters supported a referendum proposal to constitutionally ban water privatisation.
Alex Contreras Baspineiro, the South American bureau chief for Narco News, pointed out in a November 4 article: "Joblessness and Uruguay's deep economic recession have raised the level of poverty, especially among women and children. Around 31 percent of the people in urban areas here are considered poor. Between 1999 and 2003 the number of people below the poverty line doubled, from 408,120 to 849,100. Forty-four percent of the poor people in this country are under eighteen years old."
To give a sense of the jubilation surrounding Frente Amplio's victory: out of an estimated 500,000 Uruguayans who live abroad, some 40,000 returned to be able to vote. On October 27, 500,000, more than one in seven Uruguayans, rallied in support of a victory of FA and Vasquez.
Unsurprisingly, this rejection of neoliberalism was reflected in the victories obtained by the left governments in Venezuela, Chile and Brazil as the experience of neoliberalism has hit hard across the whole region.
Venezuela, Brazil
In Venezuela, following President Hugo Chavez's crushing victory in the August 15 presidential recall referendum, the Bolivarian revolution has continued to paint the electoral map red. Pro-Chavez forces secured control of 20 out of the 22 governorships up for grabs in the October 31 regional elections, including many previously controlled by the opposition. Importantly, they gained control of the municipalities covering the capital, Caracas, whose police force of 18,000 was in the hands of the opposition who used it to repress Chavez supporters.
Overall, the Partido de los Trabajadores (PT — Workers' Party) won the most votes of any party in Brazil's October municipal elections. The PT almost doubled the number of municipalities it controlled. Many of the Brazilian left have heralded this as a victory for the PT's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in his first electoral test since being elected to the presidency in 2002.
But Cuban Communist Party member Celia Hart, a prominent commentator on Latin American politics, was right when she said on rebelion.org on November 3, "the winner in America was not [Ecuadorian president] Lucio [Gutierrez], Lula, Tabare, not even Hugo Chavez. The protagonist once again returns to be those that filled the ballot boxes with their votes and put their faith in the left."
Peredo offers a similar view, correctly pointing out, "It is not that, all of a sudden, the people of this continent have found out that Tabare, Lula, Chavez or [Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos give out affection in bulk. There is a clear will to cut off the passage for the right, which continues to put forward the neoliberal model. Even over the top of the hesitations of some governors who, taken by the people to these positions, fear to wake up the ire of the empire."
In this context, the PT should be concerned by two important defeats. The PT lost the mayor of Sao Paulo, the city where the PT was born, to Partido Social Democrata Brasileo (PSDB- Brazilian Social Democratic Party) candidate Jose Serra, who ran against Lula for president last time round. Given the size and economic importance of this city with a population of 12 million, this victory has given both PSDB and Serra an opportunity to launch their next presidential campaign.
The PT also lost Porto Alegre, which it had held for 16 years. This city grabbed the attention of the world's left with its initiatives in participatory democracy. Traditionally a stronghold of the left in the PT, it was also the venue for the first three World Social Forums.
Writing on the PT's defeats, in the November 3 edition of Argentine daily Clarin, Eleonora Gusman pointed out: "The defeat [in Porto Alegre] must be analyzed in its two dimensions: one, strictly at a municipal level, indicates that the people of Porto Alegre wanted to punish the bureaucrats of the PT for having moved away from its beginnings as a force of transformation. The second dimension is national, and sends a clear message of the deep disillusionment in the city with the results of the government of Lula da Silva."
It will be important for the left to learn not just the lessons of the defeats in Brazil, but also why Chavez continues to gain support. Hart, pointing to the key lesson of Venezuela, wrote that this victory gives the left "a good framework in which to continue working, to organize our forces, to finish off in a good way the licking of our old wounds, and to look for the mysterious means that summons our unity. History demand this of us, as the left protagonists and we must be worthy of her.
"It is not that I am waiting for these governments [to give us] the great changes that we required. The great changes will come from the social organisations and their political vanguards, only if we manage to leave the adolescence in which the end of the century buried us. In front of us we have popular governments, we have masses that begin once again to trust, we have all the reason in the world seated on our benches... But it is necessary to play! It is necessary to get onto the field!"
Hart adds: "The people in America have organized themselves to vote. If the revolution by the means of elections works, then good! If not... We know that there are other just as legitimate methods as the ballot boxes to win.
"Because this great humanity has said it is enough and it has begun to walk."
From Green Left Weekly, November 17, 2004.
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