News Reports... News
Continued from back cover/ The revolutionary left Red Electoral Alliance (Rd Valgallianse), got its best national election results ever. In Troms, RV got 5.1%, up from 1.4!! Also in Bergen, the RV vote almost doubled, reaching 4.5%. There were very good results in a number of municipalities, against a background of a small but not negligible general increase. Having said this, the RV vote in Oslo was a disappointment. In the last (parliamentary) elections RV made what seemed to be a significant breakthrough - winning more than 10% in several constituencies and 4.1% city-wide. This year we fell back 40%, with a score of only 2.9%. The most important reasons for this setback is the inability to formulate a concrete policy for Oslo. RS's success last time was mainly due to revealing corruption among politicians and top- level administration. We had no such issue this time to substitute for a general concrete policy, particularly a detailed and reasoned critique of the policies of the Labour/Socialist Left Party-dominated
ELECTION RESULTS IN NORWAY
Party 1995 since '91 since 93
Red Electoral Alliance 1.7 +0.2 +0.6
Socialist Left Party 6.1 -6.1 -1.8
Labour Party 31.3 +0.9 -5.6
Centre Party 11.8 -0.2 -5.0
Conservatives 19.9 -2.0 +2.8
Christian Democrats 8.5 +0.5 +0.7
Liberal Party 4.7 +1.2 +1.1
Progressive Party 12.1 +5.0 +5.8
Local lists 2.5 +0.2 +0.5 municipal council. On top of this, the Oslo branch of RV has been marked by severe internal conflict between Stalinists and antiStalinists. And RV's best-known immigrant representative ran a "multi- ethnic" slate in competition with us by Anders Ekland
Success for Italian Young Communist Festival PArticipation at the first national testival of the Young Communists (JC), 16-26 August, was a great success. This event was the first test tor Hitondazione's project for dialogue with the new generation. Ten days of meetings and concerts in a "super" setting, debates on international questions ranging from the war in ex-Yugoslavia to the situation in Chiapas, and on domestic questions too. [..] The programme also included a meeting of European youth organisations, with participants from the youth of the Communist Party of Catalonia, Youth League of the Greek Left (EAN), and from France both the Communist Youth and JCR-RED (Fourth Intemational). The JC bring their enthusiasm for a new internationalism, and commitment for a new season of struggle in the high schools and universities, and on labour questions. The project, is the construction of a political subject capable of relating to social struggles and mass movements. The JC of today are a concentration of local experiences, of local youth and student groups, active in national politics, but lacking a clear strategic perspective credible for the mass of young people. There are, for example, many young people who are excited about the radical positions adopted by the Rifondazione secretariat, happy to participate in meetings and vote for the party, but not responsive when invited to become militants.
With this project, Rifondazione has undertaken a form of intervention based on "doing": the party decides on the orientation, what they call "themes for the youth", and the youth carries out these tasks in material terms. The limits of this imposition were clear at the festival The co-ordination structures of the JC had not been involved in the preparation and organisation of the festival, and there was clearly a division between the decision-making phase and the practica application of these decisions. This "organising by doing" risks to exclude militant youth from the elaboration of propositions and political projects. This threatens to penalise us when the next round of mobilisations in the high schools and universities takes place, as soon as the Young Communists become involved in building these struggles and talking about our project. [...] The real challenges for the JC, and Rifondazione as a whole, are the opposition to the government's new Decree on Youth Employment, the new contracts imposed on teaching staff, new university admission procedures (increased fees and reduced places). The party's youth project must be evaluated on its capacity to intervene in social conflicts. I...] By Nando Simeone, Bandiera Rossa
Libertarian festival in Ruesta, Spanish State SOME 150 LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISTS and anarcho-syndicalists from eight countries came together in Ruesta, Spanish State, from 1320 August, for a meeting called by the French organisation Alternative libertaire. This was the largest international meeting of this current for many years, and the organisers plan a "wider, and more demanding' international meeting for 1997. A selection of speeches, debates and resolutions will be published in the coming months. Participants also pledged to co-ordinate their opposition to French and Chinese nuclear tests, their preparation for the G7 counter-summit in Lyon (June 1996), to participate in the unemployed march planned for later this year by a range of Spanish organisations, and to organise solidarity activity to support the struggle for the right to divorce and abortion in Ireland A joint initiative is also planned for international women's day, 8 March 1996. For more information contact: Alternative libertaire, BP 177, 75967, Paris cedex 20, France.
Notes
1. France (Alternative libertaire), Ireland (Worker Solidarity Movement), Italy (Comunisme libertario magazine), Lebanon (Al Badil al Taharuri), Poland (Anarchist Federation), the Spanish State (Confederación general del trabajo, Solidaridad obrera). Sweden (Svenges arbetares centralorganisation) and Switzerland (Organisation socialiste libertaire). The larges organisations represented were the Swedish SAC and Spanish State's CGT (15.000 and 30,000 members respectively).
International Viewpoint n° 270 - October 1995 35
Social democratic vote collapses in Sweden
News Reports
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY wOn only 28.1% of votes in Sweden's first elections to the European parliament on 17 September. "A Fiasco", screamed the front page of the social democratic daily newspaper Aftonbladet - the party had won 45% of votes in the 1994 parliamentary elections. "The economic crisis has become political," commented Kjell Pettersson of the Socialist Party (Fourth International). "Voters are now demanding a new referendum on the European Union. They are damn tired of EU-instigated cutbacks these last few years." The Left Party (ex-Communist) and the moderate left Greens respectively doubled and quadrupled their votes. Taken together, they did better than the social democrats. The Left Party had considered its 5.3% vote in 1994 as very good. This time they polled an all-time high of 12.9%. "It is to the honour of the Swedish voters that they chose not to protest by voting for the right-wing populists," says Kjell Pettersson. The largest right populist party won only 0.1%. The historic defeat of the social democrats and the political establishments is the result of EU-instigated cutbacks, privatisation, and increasing unemployment. In December 1993 a conservative government cut unemployment and sickness relief from 90% of salary to 80%. The LO trade union federation and the social democratic party organised an angry protest of 30,000 unionists. Social Democrat chairman Ingvar Carlsson gave a militant speech, promising changes when his party returned to office. This they did in the September 1994 general election. The party argued for Swedish affiliation to the European Union, which was approved by 52% of voters in November that year.2 Then the cutbacks started! Now Prime Minister, Ingvar Carlsson cut unemployment and sickness reliet from 80 to 75%. As has happened before in Sweden, public discontent was clearly reflected in the electoral results. Despite this clear message, Kjell Pettersson predicts that the social democrats will continue their austerity policies. But, for the first time ever, the passive support of the LO trade union federation for a social democratic govemment is challenged by a majority of Swedish unionists.
As for the Left Party and the Greens, Pettersson believes that "they will help the goverment continue its attacks on ordinary people. Both parties are eager to be seen as credible political alternatives, and maybe even partners in government in the near future." Sweden is more and more an ordinary west European country, with weak political parties, dependent on the state, and with few active members. The coming years will be hard, and the rift between establishment and voters will probably not be overcome. But who will benefit from the political vacuum, left radicals or right-wing populists? The radical left participated in the elections through the newly-formed List for Justice. The Socialist Party (Fourth International), Offensiv (co-thinkers of Britain's Militant Labour) and an impressive list of individual union militants, often linked to the social democrats. The list received economic support from the SAAB Scania metalworkers' union in Falun, and several other local unions. This is the first time ever that such support has gone to a party to the left of the Communists. Founded only shortly before the elections, and with only seven weeks to publicise itself, the list nevertheless won 14,644 votes, or 0.6% of the total. "Had this been a local election, our score would have given us representatives on 30 city councils," says Kjell Pettersson of the Socialist Party. Many activists are encouraged by the list's results, though discussions on the future of this initiative are only just beginning. Examples of the List's activities include a tour by representatives of the striking Ri-bus drivers from Esbjerg in neighbouring Denmark, and a lively and ngry protest against French nuclear tests by 750 high -chool and university students on 8 September. This is the largest demonstration since the anti-test campaign began. by Peter Lindgren
1. Electoral participation in Sweden is traditionally high - 85-89% in the 1994 elections. This time round only 41.2% of registered voters participated. The social democratic party received only 745,268 votes, a decline of 1,750,000, and their lowest score since the right to vote was established in 1917 2. Swedish membership of the EU began on 1 January 1995.
• Norway: Racist vote increases in municipal elections PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL elections confirm the long-term decline in support for the traditional governing parties. Labour go onlyt 31%, the Conservatives only 19%.For decades the Labour Party enjoyed 40-45% support, and the Conservatives 25-30%. To the right of the Conservatives, the Thatcherite and racist Progressive Party (Fremskrittspartiet) now regularly polls 515% of the vote. To the left of the Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party (Sosialistisk Venstreparti) also captures 5 - 12% of the voters. Another winner since 1989 has been the peasant based party The Centre Party, with 8-12%. In this new party system, the racist Progressive Party and the Socialist Left Party are the main losers or winners of each elections. 1987 saw a racist swing, 1991 a progressive swing, and 1995 shows a new swing of protest towards the racists. The phenomenon that really characterises these latest elections is the breakthrough for the "Progressives" in the working class districts of the capital, Oslo, where the racist 36 International Viewpoint n° 270 - October 1995 increased their share of the vote from 10 to 25%. And this reflects the positive reaction of parts of the working class to revelations of a pre-election meeting of a Progressive Party MP with notorious outspoken racist organisations (the Progressive Party is not explicitly racist.) The Socialist Left Party has totally lost the momentum build up from 1989 to 1991. It had done well opposing the Thatcherite policy of the Conservative and the Labour governments, and stressing environmental issues. As part of this success the SLP went into an alliance with Labour in the Oslo Municipal Council after the municipal elections in 1991. But the party then slid to the right, and was became unable or willing to enforce any radical measures in the Oslo municipality. Another contributing factor was also that the Party was not consolidated of active in its opposition to the European Union. That send a lot of voters to the Centre Party, earlier seen as a bourgeois party. SLP leaders thought that the key to even greater success was to become more respectable and responsible. They were cruelly mistaken. /Continued on inside cover