Missed opportunity
International Viewpoint #256 May 1994
THE United Left has missed an opportunity to widen its appeal and support. Our correspondent explains why.
MIGUEL ROMERO
Madrid, 27 April 1994
T
HE European elections on
12 June will take place during the most serious economic, political and social crisis in the Spanish
State since the Socialists (PSOE) came to power at the end of 1982. Some statistics: unemployment at 24%, or around 3.8 million people; casual employment at 34%; industrial jobs down by 10% last year; and, thanks to corruption, the emergence of a "Kleptocracy" with amongst its members the ex-Gover-
Spain, the ex-Director
General of the Civil
Guard (the political
SPAIN
In these conditions, the political importance of the European elections is growing: a strong vote by the left against the PSOE is one of the few means available in the short-term to stimulate social mobilisation. For the United Left (TU) -Which in recent years has made radical opposition to the González government its central feature — it should have been an exceptional opportunity to form the axis of a united, "red-green" list of candidates ("red-green" being not wholly appropriate, given the involvement of, for example, feminist groups), with which a large majority of the left could identify, fed-up as they are with the PSOE. Regrettably, this opportunity has been lost. The IU European list has been decided by internal manoeuvring (possibly for medium-term political objectives) which do not correspond with its proclaimed willingness to develop "a live process of political, programmatic
Anguita, IU's general co-ordinator, and obtained sixty percent of the vote. The minority current, New Left (NI), is organised formally and obtained forty percent. The Communist Party (PČE) of which Julio Anguita continues to be the Secretary-General, is the backbone of the majority, while in NI there are a number of important former leaders of the PCE - the best-known of those being Nicolás Sartorius, who for many years was seen as the natural successor to Santiago Carrillo2 — and of the Socialist Action Party (PASOC),3 an organisation with very few activists, but which is influential due to its appearance as the "socialists" of the IU. We can characterise the majority as the "left" and the NI the "right" of the IU, although this needs to be amplified.
The conflict between the majority and NI became worse in subsequent months. This was especially true of the debate around MaasIU to breaking point. On 27 September 1992 the Federal Council adopted
The crisis has overwhelmed the capacity force specialised in the for reaction and resistance of the social struggle against "terrorism"
and drug trafficmovements, which in general have been king, which also posweak and disorientated for a long time.
sesses an extremely powerful information network),! the ex-Director General of the State
Official Gazette, the exchief of the Stock Exchange and many less senior officials. Nobody doubts that there will be new scandals in the next few months nor that a large number of those involved in the corruption will never be discovered.
The crisis has overwhelmed the capacity for reaction and resistance of the social movements, which in general have been weak and disorientated for a long time. If the general strike on 27
January showed the possibility for struggle, it demonstrated even more clearly the lack of alternatives to the
Workers' Commissions (CC.OO) and the General Workers' Union (UGT), which did not know what to do when the government completely refused to change to its harsh economic and social policy.
18 and, in time, institutional convergence of a broad spectrum of left-wing forces." Only fifty-eight percent of the Federal Council voted in favour of the list. This is a statistic which indicates that there will be important political battles within IU in the run-up to its Fourth Federal Assembly, which will take place in December. It is worth examining the IU European electoral policy for 12 June in the context of the most important debates going on in the organisation.
Two currents
At the Third Federal Assembly which took place in May 1992 two main currents emerged, which since then have played a major rôle: the majority current is informal and centred around Julio
La resolution which altered substantially the position taken by the majority: "The Federal Council agrees that the Parliamentary group should abstain from the final on the principle of the Maastricht Treaty. Abstention will serve to denounce the González government's exclusion of the Spanish people from the building of Europe and at the same time declare that the Maastricht Treaty in its final form should not be ratified, on the contrary pleading for renegotiation... " In spite of the intention of consensus, only eight deputies abstained; another eight voted in favour (adhering to the "critical support" formula) and one, although also in favour, was absent from the vote so as to avoid the official position being in a minority,
1. The Interior Minister, Antonio Ascuni, who had governmental responsibility for the Civil Guard, has also subsequently resigned.
2. Santiago Carrillo (1915- ) was for many years the central leader of the Spanish Communist Party.
3. PASOC was formed from a split in the PSOE in 1983. Its leaders are, in the main, "establishment" figures.
International Viewpoint #256 May 1994 with the consequent risk of provoking a serious internal crisis. In any event, those still divided between the majority and NI positions were themselves going to set off a new conflict some months later.
### Electoral lists
From the beginning of 1993 there was a pre-campaign atmosphere in respect of the general elections. Anguita notably radicalised his position: "The PSOE must lose the elections through left-wing activity." The NI current harshly criticised this position and proposed that agreement be sought with the PSOE so as to avoid the possibility of a conservative Popular Party (PP) government. To give some idea of why it was proposed, on 23 April 1993 an opinion poll in the Spanish daily El Pais showed that 43% supported a PSOE-IU government, as against 34% in support of a PSOE-PP government. (Only 11% were in favour of the coalition which in fact has finally occurred between PSOE and the Catalan nationalist organisation, United Conver-
However conflict was provoked not by programmatic questions, but something much more prosaic: the electoral lists. The Madrid organisation, which traditionally has the main leaders, called preliminary elections to fix the order of candidates proposed by the leadership.
There was a high degree of participation
— ninety-seven percent, or 2,832 members. In principle it was a positive idea and one which the left should use in future. In this instance there was a huge vote against the main leaders of NI.
They obtained fifth, eighth and ninth compromise offered by Anguita, and NI resigned from the coalition leadership.
The IU vote in the general election was worse than expected: eighteen deputies were elected, only one more than previously, although its vote increased by more than 400 thousand to almost 2.25 million or 9.7% of the vote.
González could obtain an absolute majority either through coalition with IU or CiU. For some days there were meetings and negotiations and it was at this period that internal movements began which resulted months later in the position decided upon in respect of the European elections.
The NI position was extremely clear and coherent from the first. Sartorious stated that agreement with the PSOE was a question of survival for the IU; given that the major obstacle to agreement was economic policy, this shrewd politician proposed that IU should accept whatever was agreed between the PSOE and the unions. For their part, the majority proposed a programmatic agreement, which if it occurred should be ratified by the rank and file. As IU was responsible for responding to the possibility of a PSOE-IU parliamentary majority, this approach appeared in principle fairly reasonable. But in reality the position held by the majority's spokespeople in meetings with the PSOE was extremely confused.
Anguita treats programmatic questions seriously (his favourite phrase is: "Programme, programme, programme") and IU itself frequently produces enormous manifestos (for example, that for the 1993 elections took up 150 closetyped pages). Without questioning the usefulness of these, it is doubtful whether they can serve as guides for complex policies of alliance, especially if the objective is to form a government. No- one seemed to understand, even after the talks with González, what the IU considered the overriding conditions for supporting or forming part of the government. Even worse, it remained unclear what Anguita meant to say when he declared the readiness of IU to "burn itself up" if there was agreement with a
PSOE which had turned to the left. In the end González refused to contemplate an agreement with IU. But it is reasonable to suppose that when these problems are considered specifically, which is likely to happen soon, there will be important debates which will not necessarily take place in the framework of the currents. There will be occasion to return later to this theme.
Towards "normalisation"
González' contempt for any IU proposal ended the post-electoral debate. But only a few weeks later there was another internal crisis. Sartorius proposed that the organisation should become a party, so as to challenge the hegemony of the PCE within the IU. The proposal was rejected firmly; it was clear that a majority wanted to maintain the present organisational structure and not engage further in internal conflict, which might result in a split; as a result of this, Sartorius withdrew from political activity, at least temporarily.
### Rumours
A prominent opponent of the Sartorius proposal was Alonso Puerta, a European deputy and Secretary-General of PASOC. Rumours began to circulate that Puerta had arranged with Anguita that he should head the IU list for the European elections; it seemed incredible, but it was true.
During the summer, González attempted to sign a social pact with the CC.OO and the UGT. The CC.O0 delegation in particular proved very receptive to his overtures. Anguita was firmly opposed to the social pact, demonstrating once more that on social questions he remains implacably opposed to the rampant neo-liberalism of the government. NI supported the pact, as had been expected. However, González' repeated inflexibility did bring about agreement within the IU: agreement that no pact was possible.
After the summer there were clear signs of change in the leadership of IU, referred to as "normalisation". The statement which Anguita made in the Federal Council at the beginning of October was agreed by a joint majority-NI commission, and NI announced its re-joining of the federal organisations of the IU, on the grounds that the majority had made an about turn on issues such as the building of Europe, the policy of alliances and economic proposals. Although clearly the main reason why the NI returned to the leadership is that they had little to do otherwise, there did appear to be change in position on the part of the majority, although this had not
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International Viewpoint #256 May 1994 shown itself in any practical way and at times appeared rather contradictory.
There were three different elements to the Anguita position following the general elections: firstly, he sought a programmatic consensus with NI which would heal the breach opened up by the Maastricht debate, but maintain the basic political profile of the organisation; secondly, in the face of the crisis in the PSOE, he wanted IU to win influence amongst disenchanted PSOE voters, and goodwill to be shown in pursuing agreements, (with a corresponding "rectification". on the part of the PSOE) so that programmatic agreement could be reached; and thirdly, he still maintained a harsh critical line on González' politics, and supported the calls for social mobilisation, which occurred in the General Strike on 27 January. The three elements did not fit well together. Further, aline would develop which had disturbing aspects but which would determine the future of the organisation.
### Eco-socialist factor
In early autumn there was a new development which had a small but significant influence on events. In Barcelona and Madrid meetings began between "red" and "green" currents. These included members of both IU's majority and "eco-socialist" current, Alternative Left (IA), the Greens, pacifists, and, in Barcelona, many of the collective which publishes the magazine Mientras Tanto (Meanwhile), a pioneer of eco-socialism since its inception in 1979. They communicated with each other and shared a common approach to central issues. To quote from one of their documents: "We cannot resign ourselves to short-sighted or criminal policies which harms the interests of the majority and mortgages the future. Today more than ever there needs to be an alternative broad front of those of us who support equality, liberty and solidarity whether or not we are in political organisations: left-wing parties and groups, unions, the ecologist and anti-nuclear movement, feminist and pacifist groups, Christian movements, civic and cultural associations..."
Although these initiatives were not strictly electoral, the proximity of the European elections and the possibility of intervening in these clearly played an important role.
At the end of December Joaquim Sempere in Barcelona, and a little later Carlos Taibo in Madrid, put themselves forward as independent nominees for a list which would defend an eco-socialist 20 programme. Both are intellectuals who although no longer politically active had played a large part in left-wing struggles, and who could count upon the support of many taking part in the mee-
Their main supporters were IU and the aligned organisation, Initiative for Catalunya.
The Sempere and Taibo candidacies did not contradict the IU's political position. Its objective for the European elections is to form "a strong red-green centre in the Strasbourg Parliament" and it has often said that it wishes to establish a special telationship with the social movements. However they would also be useful politically * their radical and alternative image could be transformed into votes tor the WU. But the above counted for nothing. In Barcelona the leadership. of Initiative for Catalunya endorsed the candidacy of Antoni Gutiérrez, out-going European deputy. and ex-Secretary General of the Catalonian Unified Socialist Party (PSUC)A who obtained seventy percent of the vote, as against thirty percent for Sem-
In Madrid, the TU leadership made only an informal offer of seventh position on the list to Taibo. He would not have been certain of election and most of those who nominated him considered it unacceptable.
### Crosshead
The situation was especially regrettable because if Sempere and Taibo had been endorsed useful lessons might have been learnt for the future. However the Barcelona and Madrid initiatives are not only continuing but finding an echo elsewhere, both within and outside the IU. It will not be easy to find the space nor a suitable rôle for such groups so different not only in their practices, but also in their projects. But it is important to build bridges between the "reds" and "greens". It is clear from many European countries that where such bridges do not exist, this has negative consequences for both camps.
On 5 March a Convention took place in Madrid of more than five-hundred IU cadres, to debate and approve the European election programme. The next day the Federal Council decided decided the first fifteen positions on its
The debate upon the programme was generally limited to leading cadre. There has been numerous and justified criticisms of this from the rank and file.
The Convention put forward very few amendments and although many opinions were expressed there was an atmosphere of controlled consensus. The final version was decided by the relevant commission.
The document setting out the programme is long - over eighty pages, one third of which is on the economy. There are many positive ideas concerning solidarity with immigrants, co-operation with the south, reduction of the working week to thirty hours (although with wage reductions), defence of conscientious objection, participation by citizens, social organisations and movements, a consistent approach to environmental issues, and so on.
The aspects which are most open to criticism are (1) those which are either abstract Europeanism, pure rhetoric, or confusing ideas and tasks (for example "The European Union is a strategic objective of the left" or "Europe is objectively interested in democratising international refations..."), (2) above all, the ambiguous proposal to "build a majotity for progress on the European level Its proponents insist that it should not be understood as a proposal for alliance with the European Socialist Party (ESP), but do not explain how the "majority for progress" can exist in Strasbourg on the margin of the ESP. This is an especially serious matter because IU is aware of the unavoidable relationship between policies of alliances on the European plain and in the Spanish
The programme was approved almost unanimously. But the following day there was a fierce battle over the electoral list and more particularly over who should head the list. In the Federal Presidency (the Executive Committee) there was a close vote between two candidates: Alonso Puerta, supported by Anguita, the main leaders of the very powerful Andalucian organisation and also NI, and Laura González (European deputy, ex-President of the Asturian parliament and leader of the Asturian Communist party, supported by most of the "majority" (although, at least for the present, it would be better to say "ex-majority"). Alonso Puerta won by seventeen votes to fourteen.
Anguita put forward on Puerta's behalf generic arguments (such as "shared loyalty to the programme") and
4. The PSUC is an autonomous regional organisation affiliated to the PCE.
5. The "European Socialist Party" brings together all the major social-democratic parties from the countries of the European Union.