Sweeping victory for Spanish right
(Los Angeles Times, 17th April, 2000).
Especially important, the protests divided the delegates (as in Seattle). The G77 Nations (the poorest nations of the world) expressed support and solidarity for the protests. Of course, since (unlike the one-nation, one-vote WTO) voting is skewed toward the U.S. and other imperi-
THE results of the March 12th general elections in the Spanish alist nations, so divisions amongst delegates had no chance of manifesting themstate confirmed tendencies which have been at work over the selves in a scuttling of the meetings' agencourse of the last 2 decades within Spanish society. These rendered das as they had in Seattle.
unlikely a triumph of the coalition of the two national political
Except for the corridors in the forces of the left: the Partido socialista obrero de España (Spanish
IMF/WB vicinity, demonstrators took the streets at will (keeping in mind that the
Socialist Workers' Party, PSOE), and Izquierda Unida (United troops deployed were held in reserve and
Left, [U). However, it was difficult to forecast that the right's victonever used.) A somewhat larger number ry would involve them gaining an absolute majority or that the attended the Sunday rally held on the defeat of the PSOE would be on such a scale.
Ellipse, south of the White House.
Although the AFL-CIO had made no effort whatsoever to mobilize members, some groups wearing union hats and t-shirts attended. International Unions did, however contribute material aid to holding the rally.
Confrontation
The march route left the rally site, proceeded to within one block of the IMF/WB and returned to the rally site. Most participants in the direct action who were not in custody joined the march. An attempt by police to provoke a confrontation at the very tail end of the march failed due to efforts by rally peacekeepers.
Due to rain and wind that made use of the sound system impossible, as well as cutting way down on attendance, the
Monday Rally was cancelled and a press conference held. Extremely effective speeches were made by Tanya Margolin, a student at George Washington University, where both anti-sweatshop organizing and efforts to unionize low paid academic employees are strong, and by Chris
Clement, a student at Howard University, the premier African American campus in the Northeast U.S. The press conference was covered by C-SPAN and partly by
CNN - probably because Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon appeared and spoke in solidarity with the demonstrations.
The April actions were not "another
Seattle" but they continued the movement begun there and furthered the education of
U.S. workers on the human costs, at home capitalist and elsewhere, of globalization.*
*The authors are supporters of the US socialist organization
"Solidarity".
JAIME PASTOR*
TWO figures stand out from the results. The Partido Popular (Popular Party, PP) gained 44.54% of the votes, 183 deputies and an absolute majority in the new Parliament, against 38.79% of the votes and 156 seats four years ago. The PSOE on the other hand went from 141 to 125 deputies and from 37.63% to 34.08%.
The IU lost 13 seats (8 against 21) and half its votes (5.46 against 10.54% in 1996). As for other forces, the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (Basque Nationalist Party, PNV) benefited from the non-participation of Euskal Herritarrok (EH) and gained two seats more than the five it previously held; the Catalan right nationalists (Convergéncia i Unió, Convergence and Union, CiU) lost 1, while Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia, ERC) kept its single deputy, as did Iniciativa per Catalunya (Initiative for Catalonia, IC, a formation expelled from the IU).
Another significant element of these elections resides in the fact that the Chunta Aragonesista (CA, left Aragon nationalists) gained a seat, which will be held by the famous author and interpreter José Antonio Labordeta, while the Partido Andalucista (Andalusian Party) returned to Parliament. Finally, the Bloque Nacionalista Galego (Galician Nationalist Bloc) increased its strength, although not as spectacularly as predicted, going from 2 to 3 seats.
A fundamental element in these elections was the increased rate of abstention, which was over 30% (30.02% against 22.62% in 1996) and was higher in Catalonia and the Basque country although the campaign for a boycott of the elections by EH did not have the success anticipated). Spoiled ballots were also up, from 0.97% to 1.58% or 366,083 electors. Abstention was however down by around 7% in relation to the European elections of June 1999.
### Partial conclusions
Several partial conclusions can be drawn. The first relates to the factors that contributed to such a crushing and general victory for the PP (including in a part of the Basque country). Probably the main factor stems from the effects of the favourable economic conjuncture, which have concealed the visibility of negative consequences like unemployment, increasingly precarious nature of work and the feminisation of poverty, growing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or increasing concentration at the financialeconomic and media levels.
The reduction of direct taxes and interest rates, promises of higher pensions, the so-called "popular capitalism" with the sale of shares in privatised enterprises, all allowed Aznar and Rato (the minister for the economy and finance) to sow illusions among social sectors who did not see major divergences between what the PP International Viewpoint #321 May 2000 7
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USA / Spain *
* Spain proposed and what was promised by Almunia (secretary general of the PSOE). Another element was the use of ETA attacks and the costly experience of the "governability" pacts with CiU to show that only the PP could guarantee "the unity of Spain" and the possibility of governing the country without depending on peripheral nationalisms.
These two arguments succeeded in counteracting the condemnations of racist actions like those in El Ejido (where a pogrom against immigrant North African workers took place), where the PP saw its vote go up sharply, and obscured scandals like that concerning stock-options in the Telefónica enterprise or the Pinochet affair. This strategy of diversion proved successful thanks to the control of the "political agenda" exercised by the majority of the media in the service of the PP.
### Demagogic critique
We should also mention as a secondary factor the demagogic critique made by the PP of the PSOE-IU pact - its accusations of "a hidden programme" generated a more significant mobilisation of its electorate. On the other hand, as the leaders of the two formations now recognise, the PSOE-IU pact "has not functioned". In a climate of virtually general demobilisation of the left and the majority of social organisations, the programmatic agreement for government did not revive the "hope" anticipated by Manifesto Intellectuals encouraged by the two parties, which some saw as a development which could take root in certain sectors like the trade unions.
In the end not even the leaders of the UGT and the CCOO, the two main trade union organisations, dared to give public support to the left - aware, no doubt, of the final polls on voting intentions, which were not made public, and more interested in giving priority to dialogue with the party that was going to win the elections. The pact was interpreted as "opportunist" in the stricter sense of the term.
The leadership of the PSOE, having eliminated its internal oppositional sectors from the lists of candidates, was conscious that it could not succeed in winning votes alone. Its tactical turn towards left alliances did not prevent it from continuing to orientate politically towards the "centre". The IU leadership's objective was simply to sign an agreement, whatever its
8 International Viewpoint #321 May 2000 programmatic content, so as to avoid the final disaster of disappearance from the parliamentary institutions.
The political concessions made to the PSOE and the confusion that they created among militants and electors, some educated in "anti-félipismo"? and others in the cult of 'programme, programme, programme' meant that, if on the one hand the unitary aspect of the agreement won some votes, this orientation certainly led to losses on the other.
Even if we should await the necessary sociological surveys to confirm it, it is not rash to advance the hypothesis that among the abstentionists (around 10 million electors) were those who remained perplexed and without illusions about an electoral pact incapable of counterbalancing the right's hopes of victory. One can conclude that the percentage of abstentionists (and spoiled ballots) linked to the social left (and not only to the radical left) was significant enough to tip the balance, taking into account the fact that the PP gained 1.8 million votes in relation to the Europeans whereas the left only gained 400,000
All the same, in some places (Madrid, the Asturias for example, IU succeeded in halting its electoral decline, but this was not the case everywhere (Andalusia, the Balearics). The problem of the IU leadership is that it kidded itself that the pact with the PSOE had changed the political sufficiently to defeat the PP and form a leftwing government with IU ministers, elect a not insignificant number of senators (despite the agreement with the Socialist Party, IU did not obtain any) and emerge from internal financial crisis.
No leap forward It is for this reason that Francisco Frutos, candidate number one of the IU and secretary general of the Partido Comunista Español (Spanish Communist Party, PCE) acknowledged a "defeat without extenuating circumstances" and admitted his frustration at not having made the "spectacular leap forward" that he had predicted during the campaign.
To this we must add the result of the Andalusian regional elections. Here, even if the PSOE succeeded in keeping a relative majority, the progress of the PP was significant, whereas the defeat of the IU was comparatively stronger than in the rest of the Spanish state (it won 6 seats as
Results of the parliamentary elections of March 12th, 2000 Parties Votes Deputies PP 44.54 10,230,287 183 IPSOE 34.98 7.828.001 125
5.46 1.253.821 8 CIU 4.20 964,990 8 PNV 1.53 351,816 CC 1.06 243.489 BNG 1.32 302.126 PA 0,90 205.720 ERC 0.84 193,629 LIC-V 0.52 118,846 EA 0.44 100,570 Chunta 0.33 75,234 1 PP: Popular Party; PSOE: Spanish Socialist Workers Party; IU: United Left; CHU: Convergence and Union (Catalonia); PN V: Basque Nationalist Party: CC: Canarian coalition; BNG: Galician Nationalist Bloc: PA: Andalusian Party: ERC: Republican Left of Catalonia: IC-V: Catalan LeftGreens: EA: Eusko Alkartasuna; Chunta: Aragonese Junta against 13 previously).
Of course, there was no agreement with the PSOE for the elections to the Andalusian autonomous community, but this was not due to lack of will on the part of IU co-ordinator general, Antonio Romero, who throughout the campaign demanded an "agreement of government" and accused the leader of the Andalusian PSOE, Manuel Chaves, of sectarianism.
For our part, we reaffirm that the pact signed was not "the only deal possible". A left force with a project of transformation should never accept this argument, which conceals the renunciation of some aspects of its programme which could leave IU "without identity, without profile and, very probably, without political space in the
, as Francisco Fernández Buey wrote in an article published before the agreement was reached .4
We believe that there could have been agreement on nominations, on mutual support for the Senate and a general common declaration, without commitment to government, which did not include the dramatic points concerning the respect of international engagements, the stability pact, fiscal policy or the Basque conflict. This type of agreement would probably not have
generated major enthusiasm, but it would at least have guaranteed an equilibrium between, on the one hand, a form of unity of action of the left against the right which eliminates all suspicion of "connivance" with the PP, and on the other, the maintenance of signs of the IU's basic identity.
Added to the unacceptable character of this agreement was the experience of an electoral campaign during which Almunia spent his time reaffirming that the policy of privatisation had been initiated by Felipe González and that he would respect it, while "forgetting" to include the objective of the 35 hour week in his announcement of the 18 first measures to be taken in the course of the first 100 days of government — one can only draw a critical balance sheet.
### Axes of polarization
In reality, so far as the two main axes of polarisation of the electorate, the social question and the recognition of the plurinational character of the Spanish state, were concerned, no clear differentiation of the national left from the PP could be observed in the course of the campaign.
It is then no surprise if a part of the PSOE's ex-electorate voted for the PP while others chose abstention or a left nationalist vote. IU showed no concern either to accent non-economic themes, apart from the Pinochet affair and, finally, support for the initiative for a referendum on the foreign debt. The indifference shown to mobilisations like that of the alternative sector of students in Madrid and other cities on March 9 also illustrates inant bloc of social and economic power, deepening some aspects of the economic policy developed by the PSOE (like privatisation). It has pursued the policy of the socialists in other areas (Atlanticist foreign policy, European Union) and has introduced new elements which imply ruptures with the preceding period, notably in the area of culture and media.
The federal leadership of the IU, obsessed with its objective of overtaking' the PSOE, was very late in understanding this change of cycle. This has led it to make serious tactical errors since May 1995, to the extent that the 5th Federal Assembly of the IU decided to rely on "the unity of action of the left" to finally bring about a pact of government — around the programme of the PSOE.
Today, the risk exists that the consolidation in power of a neoliberal, centralist and xenophobic right would lead to an overestimation of its strength in society and the view that the only worthwhile choice would be to opt for the "lesser evil" and the reconstruction of the unity of action of the left around the political "cen-
. It is probably the conclusion that will be drawn by a significant sector of the PSOE "barons" and, one must fear, a part of the federal leadership of the IU.
### Historic importance
This does not mean that we underestimate the historic importance of the PP's electoral victory. It is undeniable that this latter will mark the beginning of an offensive against the institutional and social positions of the left in a number of region-
Spain * José Maria
Aznar will be more talk of new leaders than of projects.
However, one can note two and a half possible perspectives: the first is to steer more towards the "centre" to contest the space gained by the PP; the second is to forget about the "third way" and rebuild a social-democratic project; while the "half" perspective could originate from regions like Catalonia, where the two aforementioned perspectives would be accompanied by a federalist tonality which would differentiate itself from the dominant Spanish centralism. In all these cases, these perspectives would be accompanied by a demand for reinsertion in society and the citizens' networks which should not be dismissed
Twists and turns
The IU, for its part, should begin by the preoccupation with giving a al and municipal authorities and social "respectable" image so as to develop a "culture of government"
It is not as if there was insufficient time to explain the accords (newspapers like El País and television chains like Canal Plus broadly popularised them. The problem was located in the context of the demobilisation of the left and the lack of credibility of a pact between two formations which had carried out a 180-degree turn in their policy of alliances for fundamentally political reasons.
We now find ourselves facing the consolidation of a new political cycle which began at the time of the May 1995 regional and municipal elections, and which was confirmed by the "bitter" victory of the PP in March 1996. Since then the political right has firmed up its links with the domorganisations. This triumph could turn into an immediate threat for the weakest and the most socially vulnerable, starting with immigrant workers. The Basque country in particular will continue to be a place of tension, even if it may be that a change of head at the ministry of the interior might allow a carrot and stick policy in relation to the PNV.
But we need to examine the strategic projects for recomposition which can be implemented, precisely because the electoral defeat suffered should be digested over the medium term. As to the PSOE, it is still too soon to make predictions, but it is obvious that it is the PP which has finally put an end to "félipismo". A new stage is opening for the PSOE, in the course of which, as is the tradition in this party, there recognising the need to end all the twists and turns in its policy of alliances and the sectarian treatment of various internal currents (including Espacio Alternativo) and of many social organisations. It must also recognise that there is no possible electoralist shortcut out of its minority position in society. After this initial self-criticism, the medium term task would be to continue to criticise, evaluate and reinterpret our societies so as to arrest the progression of the values of the right among those "at the bottom"
This programme of research and collective political, social and cultural action should be based on the priority given to the work of reconstruction of "nodes" of citizens networks and social organisations, building their power, resting on their initiatives and respecting their autonomy. In International Viewpoint #321 May 2000 9
* Spain / Euskadi this process, the role of the trade unions could be fundamental, on the condition that they too proceed to a refoundation as confederal movements in defence of a new social, ecological, feminist and solidaritybased citizenship, thus transcending their neo-corporatist practices.
If things go differently, the unhappiness felt by the most deprived sectors will take other forms, whether in the unions or elsewhere. We need to organise an infrastructure capable of defending fundamental rights, starting with the right to a stable and worthwhile job. Again, the objective of the 35-hour week should be taken up forcefully in a perspective of the sharing of work and wealth on a EU-wide scale. More than this, we must be open to the sympathy aroused by objectives like the cancellation of the debt, the struggle for the control of capital movements, or the diversity of sectoral (health, education, housing continue to be the central questions) and local struggles.
Three projects
Even where there is agreement on the necessity of this project of rebuilding links with the cultural and social left as well as with the "people at the bottom" in general, three different projects seem to exist within IU. The first would be to deepen the adaptation to a "social-liberalism" in crisis and to a "neo-Spanish-centralist" perspective, accompanied by an abandonment of the federal organisational model.
The second would be a return to the perspective of the "two camps" (IU in one, the PP and PSOE in the other) and the affirmation of the identity of a "Communist" and centralised IU. The third could be that of those, numerous even if increasingly less active inside IU, who support an alternative, federalist, left which recognises plurinationality and respects internal political pluralism. Such a left would accord more weight to the discourse and practice of the effective fusion of red, green and violet (the latter is the colour associated with feminism in Spain).
Each of these three projects gives a distinct response to the problem of the "unity of action of the left" against the right. The first maintains the PSOE as its central reference and accords a minimal role to the nationalist lefts and the collectives distanced from institutional politics, when it does not ignore them altogether. The second implies a vanguardist and patrimonial 10 International Viewpoint #321 May 2000 conception of the left, relegating the question of relations with other forces to the level of simple tactics. The third seeks to build a radical left which can in some way converge with the PSOE, the nationalist lefts and that sector of the politicised social left which abstains or has recently become distanced from the IU.
The triumph of this third option should lead in reality to a refoundation of the IU and would imply a change of name, as well as a thoroughgoing generational renewal, bringing the composition of the leadership in line with that of the majority of its electors. But it will be difficult to realise these objectives during the 6th Assembly, above all if, after the timid self-criticism made up to now, we are obliged to focus on the we are ot question of the succession to Julio Anguita.
### Turning outwards
It is for this reason that IU militants would do well to devote their energies to turning the IU outwards to the active social organisations, preparing a counter-offensive against the right, rather than becoming closed in once again in self-centred dynamics and internal power struggles.
So long as we don't succeed in creating the conditions of a new cycle of social mobilisations which opens the possibility of putting into practice "non-reformist reforms", we can hardly advance in the reconstruction of the left and challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism over society.
So far as Espacio Alternativo is concerned, all this means that we will devote our efforts to creating this "bridge" between the political and the social, which has been one of the reasons for our constitution as a network of collectives and a current inside the IU. To reaffirm and reinforce our project, we will organise our second confederal meeting this May. * * Jaime Pastor is a member of the Espacio Alternativo current and of the federal leadership of Izquierda Unida. 1. The Basque nationalist left (Herri Batasuna and Euskal Herritarrok among others) called for a boycott of the elections. 2. From the name of Felipe González, former secretary general of the PSOE and prime minister until 1996. 3. The "autonomous communities" are the equivalent of administrative regions, but with extended powers. 4. Francisco Fernández Buey, "Sobre la unidad de la izquierda aqui y ahora", Rebelión, January 26th, 2000. 5. On election day the citizens" network for the abolition of the foreign debt, supported by around 25,000 activists, mainly youth, organised a popular vote with ballot boxes in public places. Organisers believe that the rate of participation was high, which will allow the continuation of the campaign and increase its popular audience.
### Basque nation faces