Presidential elections
PORTUGAL she offered the NPA a six-month truce to discuss the possible legalizath tion of the CPP. (11)
For the time being, and in the of anything coming from absence show surprise victory the
Philippines, the international office of the NDF, based in
Europe, issued a statement on February 26, for Soares
"a people's victory
1986, welcoming over the US-backed Marcos regime.
ag to gc W th W
"In toppling
It said,
Marcos the regime, the people have cracked the imperialist hold of the US over the
Philippines"
IT WAS undoubtedly the engagement by the left against the rightfollowing a long and hard struggle. But there is a very great wing candidacy of Freitas do Amaral between the two rounds of the danger that the United States would election which guaranteed Mario Soares' victory in the presidential seek to reestablish its control.
"The elections.
NDF takes this occasion to congratulate Corazon Aquino for her role in
After the first round, which took place on January 26, the margin the ouster of the US-backed Marcos in favour of the right-wing candidate was large with a 46.3% majority regime. We are prepared to give our as against 26% for Mario Soares, the runner up. (1) In the second support to her positive efforts to fulfill such democratic demands round, which took place in mid-February, the results were reversed as the release of political detainees and and Mario Soares got 51.35% of the votes cast.
press freedom."
the restoration of
His electoral victory is thus clearly the result of a mobilisation of
But the NDF notes that the struggle left voters at a time when most political commentators were claiming must be continued and it calls on the
"Filipino people to defend their gains"
a victory for Amaral.
"advance democratic and and to patriotie gains." It is simply a matter of taking the first steps to dismantle
FRANCISCO LOUCA the apparatus of the former regime.
(12)
The NPA claims to have 32,000
The campaign for the presidential full-time or part-time fighters.
The elections constituted important an intelligence services credit
American event in Portuguese life.
political it with about 16,500 members. These
Already for several years the problem figures are not contradictory, since of a successor to Ramalho Eanes had the first includes part-time fighters.
been seen as an essential factor in the
The NPA has acquired strong roots political stability of the country.
in many regions of the country.
Eanes the general was who
There seems to be no question of its commanded the troops at the time of laying down its arms. But it is possible the November 25, 1975 coup d' etat of that there will be a suspension and, having already served two terms military operations to give the new president, constitutionally as was government time to demonstrate to barred from serving a third.
the masses what it is going to do and
It was a long wait and the election to study
Corazon to give time campaign had, in reality, been laun-
Aquino's concrete proposals.
ched months before. Mario Soares
Today, the left forces, progreswas the first candidate to enter the sives and revolutionaries, have to lists. As prime minister for most of operate in a new
They context.
1985, and leader of the Portuguese have to reconstitute their unity in
Socialist Party [PS), until the parlia order to intervene in the coming mentary elections on October 6, 1980, months so as to take the initiative he led the coalition government with on the social and political fronts.
the main bourgeois party, the Social
During this watershed period, it
Party
(PSD), wielding
Democratic is very important to make sure that a large parliamentary majority.
His international solidarity does not flag.
plan had openly been to stand in the
It is in fact very likely that the present presidential elections as the candidate situation is going to be seized on by of the PS and the PSD, and this plan in internaanticommunist currents was backed by the main bourgeois tional Church and social democratic political leaders and advisers to the circles in an attempt to isolate the
US embassy.
Philippine anti-imperialist left.
In order to get the support of the
Such attempts must be blocked.
bourgeois parties for his candidacy,
Today, as before, the independent
Soares also got the PS involved in people's movements need our help.
the construction of electoral pacts with the PSD and the CDS (Right
11.
See in particular the article
Christian Party), which represented
'Le Monde, March 5, 1986,
Philippe Pons, about 10 per cent of the electorate, p. 6.
12. Declaration of the National Demoduring the municipal elections last
'Liberation,' cratic
Front published in
December. The aim of this was to
Special Issue No. 2, February 26, 1986.
8 to br ti le at
W el
PS
It sh th in
W dislodge the Portuguese Communist el
Party
(PCP) from the town halls tr where they were dominant. In general coalitions did not these electoral al achieve their objective.
th the last year two factors
During
S disrupt Soares' had combined to
Pi plans.
First, popular opposition to the austerity measures imposed by the government. Even if this was not translated into huge struggles this period nevertheless saw the beginnings of a generalised sentiment of discontent that was expressed clearly in the October 6 general elections when the PS vote declined from
36% to 20% of the votes cast. (2)
E
A rush of scandals like the one over delayed payment of wages when were refusing to pay li even though they were still working, also contributed to the fall in popularity of the PS-PSD coalition government.
The second factor, which brought forward the general elections to
October, was the internal crisis of the second in the government party coalition, the PSD. As a party of the
Apart from the three candidates of the left mentioned in this article, the
PCP field a did originally candidate, member of their Central Committee, Angelo
Beloso.
At the beginning of the election campaign the latter announced his intention to stand down in favour of Zenha in
Zenha was considered the first round.
by the PCP as
"the only democratic candidate who would fight the right".
'International Viewpoint' No.
2
See
89, December 23, 1985.
International Viewpoint 24 March 1986
bourgeoisie since April 25,1974, the PSD now saw a revolt of its base against its marginalisation in relation to the PS, both within the coalition government itself and in the framework of Mario Soares' candidacy for the presidency.
The death of the PSD president, who supported Mario Soares' candidacy, opened the way for the discontent within the PSD to come to the surface. The party congress brought a change in the composition of the leadership. The new leadership of the PSD broke immediately with the coalition government which tied it to the PS, and this provoked the calling of the general elections on October 6, in which the PSD got 36 per cent of the votes. It was the advent of this new leadership of the PSD which brought about the appearance of a bourgeois candidate Soares in the presidential elections and this was the Christian Democrat, Freitas do Amaral. The candidates of the left
The first round of the presidential elections in triumph for the united candidate of the right, Freitas, who mustered an absolute majority of 46.3%. For the left there were three candidates -Soares, Salgado Zenha and Lourdes Pintasilgo and they were fighting amongst themselves for the chance to participate in the second round of the elections in which only the two top candidates would stand. eve of the elections, still a member of the PS and was Soares' two before he broke with him 1980. This was good enough reason for him to get the simultaneous support of the Eanes, who were both undermine Soares' role in the political
The third candidate, Lourdes Pintahas had a more political career. She was a functionary in the diplomatic corps in the last year of the dictatorship, involved in confidential work for notably in the United Nations where she scrupulously followed the policy of the regime.
On April 25, 1974, she was to be amongst the new democrats and President nominated her as prime minister in 1979 for a short period. Since then she has been tied small left-wing Catholic
When in government she established certain basic rights for women, and she uses pacifist rhetoric and is vaguely
International Viewpoint 24 March 1986 critical of NATO and the EEC (European Economic Community). She was very popular at the end of the 1970s, to the extent that the opinion polls were tipping her as the favourite for the presidential elections.
She was also clearly the favourite of militants and voters supporting the PCP and among Eanes supporters, the latter having recently set up a political party, the Party of Demo
(PRD) which 18% of the votes in the general elections in October 1985. success is tied in with her extraordinary capacity to draw the sympathy of large sections of the electorate, unhappy with institutions, with the functioning of the regime and with the social crisis.
Despite the fact that Pintasilgo supports the current system and the options available within that framework (defence of private property, the church etc) the radical nature of her political rhetoric led sections of the far left to support her. This created certain difficulties also for the PCP leadership in convineing their electorate to vote for Salgado Zenha, the candidate officially supported by the PCP in the first round.
In every case the candidacies of the left constituted a challenge to the tradition of the revolution of the carnations. Ranged against the right-wing candidate, Freitas, the heir were three candidates who had either been involved in compromise with had tried to create consensus in the name of the struggle against anarchopopulism, against revolutionary initiatives in the period opened up by April 25 and for the political stabilisation of
Soares and Zenha, both champions of the current regime of which the PS was a cornerstone, waged a campaign against "extremism of the left and right", putting forward vague promises
Mario Soares (DR) for "democratizing public life".
ahead of Zenha and Pintasilgo in the first round, Soares found himself with 26% of the vote as against 46.3% for the right-wing
The PCP then called for a vote for Soares in the second round. It was the massive left vote in the second round which, with a unanimity that was not forseen a few earlier, brought final victory.
This result has to be seen fundamentally as a vote to stop Freitas from winning The popular feared that a victory for Freitas would deepen the policy of attacks democratic rights and the offensive the workers. This explains the explosion of popular joy on the evening of the announcement of the which all the left parties
Soares victory will not prevent the PSD government from carrying Portuguese constitution, government which controls most political functions and can govern without much interference from the president (unlike in France, for example). The defeat of the right is thus more important on the political and psychological level than in terms of the real capacity of the government to act. It is nevertheless a sufficiently important factor to create certain internal tensions within the bloc supporting the government and it will give greater encouragement to sections of workers to struggle against, for example, the austerity measures which they have hitherto tolerated.
The successive elections in recent months - the legislative elections in tions in December 1985 and the two rounds in the presidential elections in January and February 1986reveal a series of political contradictions which we will quickly run
9
Free Otelo Carvalho
IN JULY, 1984, along with several dozen members of his party, the United
Popular Forces (FUP), Otelo Carvalho was imprisoned in Caxias.
has sinister memories since it was used for political prisoners under the dictatorship as well. Carvalho is still in jail and it is expected that he could remain there for some time.
direction which went from a government and electoral alliance with the parties of the right (the price of which was the loss of votes in the October and December 1985 elections) to an appeal for a vote for the left, "against the conservative candidate and his
The trial in the "case of the FP-25" began about six months ago. (1)
But up to now only three of the accused have been heard and there are about
40 more, with over 700 witnesses.
The slowness of the procedure is in itself illustrative of the way in which the judicial system operates. Several observers, jurists and defence lawyers have seen fit to denounce the judicial procedure as stemming from a police-organised plot with very precise political motives. It represented an attempt to undermine the influence of an important figure who retained popularity because of
"revolution of the carnations". The underlying aim of the operation seems more probably to rest in a campaign for the adoption of a new law on security destined to usher in which, legally at any rate, has not existed since April 25, 1974. To back up this theory there exists the heavy police infiltration of the terrorist organisawhich has been confirmed by the recent actions perpetrated by activities have contrived to prejudice the defence case or to present the right in a favourable light as with the assassination, on the eve of the second round of the presidential elections, of the director general of prisons.
ecause of the confused nature of the situation, made worse by the po rayal of the ex-leaders of the FUP as police provocateurs and because of th defence argument that there was a plan to create an armed wing but that it had not yet been put into action, the solidarity movement and the fight against repression is extremely underdeveloped inside the country. It has even developed in other countries, like Greece, however
Carvalho has now been held for one year and a half without any decision being made or any real evidence being brought forward and it is becoming urgent to build a protest movement against police repression and for his release.
The Popular Forces of April 25 (FP-25) is the terrorist organisation which Otelo is accused of belonging to.
The first point relates to the development of two distinct patterns which, on the electora! level, give us important indications as to the political structure of the country.
The first of these tends to predominate in periods greater political stability when, of the PS-PSD alliance or when these were alternating in government. This trend is characterised by a very slow homogenisation of the electorate at a national level, under the banners of the main parties of the left and the right.
This was marked by the growth of the
PCP in the rural areas of the North where it is usually weaker and of the
PSD vote in the urbanised South. It was also expressed in the process of industrialisation and growing unionisation in the North of the country along with increasing vacillation on the part of important sectors of the petty bourgeoisie and urban population between the PS and the PSD.
The second pattern we can see appears in times of great instability and political confrontation. Despite everything, it usually shows a continuing division between the areas where the left and right predominate.
But the second problem stems from the crisis of political leadership of the bourgeoisie which this presidential election has highlighted. The PSD and the CDS with their presidential candi-
10
La new organised political police date (and even during the time when they supported Mario Soares) were proposing to change the electoral order to guarantee parlia mentary stability and hence, governmental stability. (3) At the same time law on security, to which the prelude was the arrest and imprisonment of Otelo Carvalho (see box) will establish more rigorous and repressive norms of operation than those which were formally in place under the dictatorship. And what is already at stake is the construction of a political police.
It is obvious that the election of Soares and the support which he finally obtained from the PCP against the right-wing candidate has rather disrupted these plans. Nevertheless to the extent that the workers movement remains subordinate to certain bourgeois figures for whom compromise with these plans is always possible, it will have very little power to intervene in the debates concerntoral system.
The third issue raised by the cycle of elections boggling decline in the PS vote in October 1985 (from 36% to 20%) and its subsequent rise in February 1986 with the victory in the presidential elections. The symbol of the phoenix rising from the ashes has been very useful to the social democrats even at the cost of a change in political fascist past", during the presidential elections. The fact that this change in direction had the desired effect sheds a lot of light on the contradictions that the PS faces and on its links with the working class.
But the most important thing to understand now is that the victory of Soares has enabled him to whitewash the record of the government under his leadership in relation to alliances with the right, the austerity policies and the corrupt system of patronage. For revolutionaries who fight for the emergence of a political alternative to the. reformist parties this is the fundamental issue which confronts them after the presidential elections, now that the candidate of the right is defeated, a fact which they can only applaud.
The final question which has to be raised relates to the debate opened up amongst an important section of the mass movement about the clear failure of the policies of the PCP which they have been engaged in since 1980 and which aimed to promote undermine the influence of the PS. This strategy did not prevent Soares from getting into the second round of the presidential elections as the representative of the left. The PCP leadership, to a large degree because of its anti-fascist reflexes stemming from its history, was forced to call a four-day extraordinary congress in order to change its previous orientation which prohibited any vote for Soares and they eventually called for a vote against the right in the second establishment of a government of the left, a policy which it will rapidly abandon to return to one of exposing the Soares leadership. that today, as compared with previous years, the PCP is finding itself with no real goal outside of the psychology
"beleaguered fortress" by definition is a defensive fragile position. Any analysis of the failure of its orientation, of its sectarianism and its sharp turns in direction, will be an important element in the development of the political debate significant section of the workers' movement.
The current electoral law established a system of proportional representation by district on the basis of electoral lists. All the lists are entitled to equal access forms of communication including television and radio, during the election campaign. International Viewpoint 24 March 1986