THE
COLOMBIAN ELECTIONS;
IS THE LEFT ON THE WAY OUT OF THE LABYRINTH?
About 5 million out of 13 million potential voters participated in the local, regional, and parliamentary elections in Colombia on March 14, that is, about 38%. This low vote actually was higher than that expected.
Because of the deal made long ago by the Conservative and Liberal parties to alternate control of the government, a strong and deeply rooted tradition of not taking elections seriously has developed in Colombia.
The workers parties and coalitions that took part in this election failed to achieve the momentum needed to present a clear political alternative. The total vote for left candidates was about 70,000. The Communist Party lost a considerable numBy A. Munoz
BOGOTA--General and local elections are to be held March 14 in Colombia. At the start of May, the presidential elections will take place.
These elections coincide with an extremely grave crisis of Colombian society as a whole. On both the left and the right, there is a proliferation of splits, regroupments, and new projects. But while the right can only play with worn-out formulas that differ only about how and how much the already very severe repression should be stepped up, on the left a certain light seems to be appearing at the end of the
Colombia, the fourth most important country economically in Latin America, is going through a grave economic crisis. The gross industrial product showed a "zero growth rate" in 1981. Some 10% of the economically active population is unemployed, the majority is underemployed.
You can get some idea of the state of the productive sectors, if you consider that the narcotics traffic has begun to be called "an emerging capitalism." Narcotics exports to Western Hemisphere countries last year exceeded 2 billion dollars in value, not much below coffee exports (2.5 billion dollars). Moreover, Colombia is one of the centers of attention for the imperialist trusts, especially in the energy sector (coal, hydroelectricity, oil). And the Colombian bourgeoisie and government have fully integrated themselves in Reagan's counterrevolutionary policy, especially with respect to Central America.
ber of its seats in parliament and of its positions in the municipal and regional governments.
In the Bogota-Cunindarmca region, the CP slate got about 22,000 votes. The Unidad de Izquierda Democratica slate in which the PSR, Colombian section of the Fourth International, participated, got 4,000
In his race for the senate, Gerardo Molina, the presidential candidate of the left got only 24,000 votes, and it is not likely that he will get a seat. This may seriously weaken his campaign for the presidency.
Despite the poor results, the PSR's participation in a broad campaign was an important experience for the Colombian
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The economic crisis combines with the crisis of the two-party system. It is significant that the ultrareactionary standardbearer of the Conservative Party, Belisario Betancur, is trying to present himself as a "national-unity candidate" above his party. It is also significant that the Liberal Party, the majority party in the country, is running the risk of losing the elections by putting up two candidates--Lopez Michelsen (the official one) and Luis Carlos Galan (representing a "dissident" wing). This is the result of infighting between cliques more than of programmatic differences.
Galan is trying to present himself as a "populist nationalist, while carefully avoiding proposing any practical step that could harm any imperialist interest in the
Lopez is promising that his party will join the Socialist International, which more and more is becoming a hospital for old Latin American bourgeois parties that are tryfng desperately to regain a mass base in the workers movement.
So, there is a point of agreement between the two Liberal candidates--the Liberal Party needs a face-lifting to survive. But such maneuvers cannot be crowned with lasting success. The aspirations of the Colombian people lead to other directions.
The Colombian Communist Party remains by far the strongest party on the left. It controls the CSTC, the third strongest trade-union confederation in the country, which has more than 130,000 members. t has connections with the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), which has a large peasant base. The party
Trotskyists and a major step forward in building the party.
However, the prospects for developing a mass workers alternative depend now on the assessment of the campaign made by the forces involved in the attempt to develop working-class political independence and the conclusions they draw.
The traditional bourgeois majority party maintained its dominance on the electoral front. The official Liberal candidate, Lopez Michelsen, won 1, 800,000 votes against its Conservative opponent, Belisario Betancur's 1,700, 000. The dissident Liberal, Galan, got 530,000 votes, showing strength in particular in the Bogota area. is adroitly utilizing its relationship with the guerrillas to give a left cover to a thoroughly reformist policy.
However, the CCP is socially isolated. In the last elections, it got about 90,000 votes, which is roughly equivalent to the number of its members and organized sympathizers. It is quite unlikely that it can capture the massive aspiration of the Colombian working people for political independence.
For a period, the M-19 guerrilla group enjoyed broad popular sympathy, including in the workers movement, being seen in a certain way as a revolutionary alternative to reformism. With the passage of time, it has become locked in a private war with the army and the paramilitary organizations. The logic of militarism has led it to orient itself more in accordance with its own needs than with those of the workers movement. A typical example is its line calling for a boycott of the elections if there is no amnesty. So, the M-19 has lost most of the political capital it gained earlier.
So, where can the alternative come from? The workers movement and the revolutionary left are looking for such an alternative along roads that must converge. On the one hand, there is a growing strength of class-struggle trade-unionism. These unionists are radical in struggles but still confused in political activity. This milieu constitutes the essential culture medium for a mass workers party.
On the other hand, there is a process of clarification and evolution in the left. The FIRMES movement, for example, is a large heterogeneous grouping, mainly intel-
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lectuals. It includes democrats, Social Democrats, and socialists. It has now gone into crisis and is unlikely to emerge united from the elections. Gerardo Molina's scheme of building a "socialist party" is interesting, but it seems to be still a rather confused notion politically.
Moreover, Molina's running for a Senate seat on a CCP-dominated slate is probably going to compromise his project seriously, since the Communists are the strongest opponent of such a "socialist party. " This has already created conflicts with other
PETER GRAHAM,
The PTC has broken with the Maoist sectarianism and dogmatism of the MOIR, and is seriously putting forward a policy of convergence with other revolutionary organizations, and especially with the PSR, the Colombian section of the Fourth International.
Finally, among the organizations that claim to be Trotskyist, the PST has begun to break up, as a result of the adventures of its "caudillo" on the national and international stage. Some of the activists who are leaving the PST are regrouping around fight within the movement to assure the hegemony of the workers movement. They have to take the lead of the class-struggle currents in the unions and give them an orientation of unifying the labor movement.
They have to intervene in those circles that are looking for a socialist party that would be independent of the bourgeoisie and an alternative to the CCP. And at the same time, they have to seek a convergence in action, as well as political agreement, among the revolutionary sectors.
The PSR, which is still a very new party,
The results of the March a project of "socialist convergence," sectors of FIRMES. 14 elections and the following presidential campaign will decide the outcome of this conflict.
The crisis of the MOIR, the main political organization to the left of the CCP in the last years, and the appearance of the PTC (Partido del Trabajo de Colombia-Labor Party of Colombia) is one of the positive aspects of the recomposition of the left.
based on a class-struggle platform. This is a current that also merits attention.
This general panorama of the Colombian situation can give some idea of the difficulty of the PSR's work. The Colombian revolutionists in general and the Colombian section of the Fourth International in particular face an accumulation of grave and pressing problems. They have to advance the democratic struggle to the maximum and has demonstrated its ability to overcome difficult situations. It has shown its capacity for political initiative, especially in the fight for democratic rights, as well as its determination to link up with the real processes and the concrete experiences of the Colombian workers and poor masses. Today it faces the formidable task of accumulating the political and organizational strength to find a way out of the