BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOS
The Socialist Alliance won 1182 votes or 1.46% in the ACT seat of Fraser, with 76% of the votes counted on November 10. When the count finishes we will probably get around 1400 votes. This is a modest but decent result.
The ALP candidate, Bob McMullan, suffered a 4.7% swing against him. The Greens got 7.8% of the vote, a swing of 3.2% towards them. Seven-and-half thousand people, or 9.23%, voted for candidates to the left of Labor, namely the Greens or the Socialist Alliance.
Our election campaign had a much greater impact than the number of votes would indicate. We achieved a multitude of victories.
We ran an excellent campaign which every member and supporter of the Socialist Alliance in Canberra can be proud of. We built up a team of activists who worked well and collaborated together. We competed well in the sphere of ideology gaining much respect as to why refugees should be allowed to land and why it is a war on the Afghan people.
We have built up a Socialist Alliance organisation and network of 150 people in Canberra. We involved 120 people in stalls, letterboxing, and on polling day. Some new members of the alliance put 20 hours of their time into sticking leaflets in letterboxes.
We letterboxed an amazing 70% of the electorate, handing out 45,000 leaflets headed "Stop the war, refugees are welcome".
Our election campaign will help build the movements that will be at the forefront of fighting Howard. We were the only ones who put the anti-war and pro-refugee issues at the centre of the election campaign.
The Socialist Alliance did not just run an election campaign at the expense of the social movements because we integrated our work. Socialist Alliance activists the Sunday before the elections were central to the organisation of the Refugee Action Committee's largest, most political refugee rally to date.
Through ACTNOW, the city's anti-war coalition, we organised five rallies in the space of two months.
On polling day we covered 37 out of the 43 polling booths in the electorate till 1pm and about half of these all day: an excellent effort. About 85 people helped us on polling day.
As I went around visiting polling booths ALP members who saw my Socialist Alliance T-shirt said "well done". There were reports of voters lecturing ALP members on Labor's position on refugees. Others suggested to the ALPers that they should have the politics of the Socialist Alliance.
A number of ALP members handed out for us, including a former ALP booth coordinator and some young ALP members. Already a number of ex-ALP members have become active in the alliance.
Members of the Sri Lankan, Latin American and Turkish communities supported us. We have built small but significant bases in these communities. Individuals from the Canberra Islamic Council supported us. When I leafleted at the mosque at Yarralumla I got an excellent response.
We were the only party to visit the nurses' picket line when they went on strike and the only party to attend a protest by cleaners who lost their jobs at Woolworths.
I addressed the ACT Trades and Labor Council as the Socialist Alliance candidate. I felt like a Christian in the Colosseum, knowing that the ALP enjoys much support within it.
To my surprise, I got a good response. The secretary of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union thanked us for attending the protest against Woolworths. The secretary of the TLC thanks us for attending the meeting, stating that the Socialist Alliance was the only party interested in attending. We got a few rounds of applause.
Many of the activists of the anti-war and pro-refugees movements actively supported our campaign. They saw the good work that we have done. There were reports that church and trade union leaders voted for us.
All these successes occurred despite, barring a few exceptions, a media ban on us. The Canberra Times interviewed One Nation candidates but not us. The clearest example was when, on the Thursday before the election, Howard came to address the National Press Club and we organised a demonstration of 100: the media took photos and filmed it but nothing went to air.
We must continue having Socialist Alliance interventions in rallies, stalls and meetings. We must continue to take advantage of the cracks appearing in the ALP. We must propose joint projects with the Greens also.
One problem is the lack of young people in the Socialist Alliance; we need to find creative ways of joining youth to the Alliance.
It is clear, however, that the Socialist Alliance will be leading the movements that have a chance to topple Howard. The unity and gains from Socialist Alliance have given people the hope that we can fight and we can win.
[James Vassilopoulos was the Socialist Alliance candidate for the ACT seat of Fraser.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 28, 2001.
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