Argentina

On Argentina

Statement from Anticapitalistas

Monday 14 October 2019, by Anticapitalistas

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The international crisis has meant the ruling classes have unloaded the costs of the neo-liberal economic measures onto the backs of workers throughout the world. In a region which is again living through turbulent times, as we see with the people’s upsurge in Ecuador or the political crisis in Peru, the shift to the right in Latin America is real but also unstable. The axis of the authoritarian and ultra-liberal offensive internationally is the Trump administration but a key regional outpost of it can be seen in the semi-fascist Bolsonaro government. This is the context of the upcoming Argentinian elections. [1]

The Macri government, with the support of Trump and Bolsonaro has placed the country under the heel of the International Monetary Fund and imperialism. The IMF has made substantial loans to Argentina in exchange for a growing interference in its national economic policy. We see this in mainly in the pressure for Argentina to adopt ‘structural reforms’ in terms of the budget, taxes and labour regulations and costs that the ruling class demand. All the while, the country is sinking in an economic recession and suffering a serious decline in living standards.

The strength of the Argentinian people’s movement has limited the neo-liberal offensive. Given the absence of a mass political alternative to Macrism, working people saw in the Peronist candidates a channel for censuring the right wing in the recent primary elections. [2] This collapse of Macrism is a defeat for imperialism and for the Latin American right and partially destabilises its plans. However Alberto Fernandez , the Peronist leader, is not going to prevent the consequences of the present crisis falling on the backs of working people. He has already announced that he will maintain crucial aspects of Macri’s economic policies such as the devaluation of the currency and the agreements with the IMF.

In Argentina, Latin America and worldwide we need to develop mass struggles and unitary political structures that can lead the battle against the growing authoritarianism and the ultra-liberal policies of the ruling classes. We need anti-capitalist projects which are put forward within the struggles along with the perspective of an eco-socialist and feminist society and which aim at an irreconcilable break with the ruling elites who exploit the working class and are destroying the planet.

Given this context we think it is important to support the FIT-U (Workers Left Front – Unity) with the perspective that this will continue to advance in the next period with broader and ever more open unitary work in order to continually rebuild a living, mass-based socialist project. We wish all the best to these revolutionary activists it their vital struggle to ensure the masses do not have to vote for the ‘lesser evil’.

10.10.2019

P.S.

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Footnotes

[1The elections will take place on November 24

[2The primaries took place on August 12