IVP617 - June 2026

The left in the United States is once again, as always, debating how to engage in electoral politics. The debate seems more meaningful this year when more voters consider themselves to be independents (45%) than to be either Republicans (27%) or Democrat (27%). Could the left now present the disaffected with a political alternative.

After the Israeli army’s violent interception of the Gaza flotilla, activists have denounced humiliation and violence — a long-documented glimpse into the torture and sexual violence suffered by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. More than 430 activists from the 50 boats that set out to break the blockade of Gaza were kidnapped by the Israeli occupation army between Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 May, in international waters off the coast of Cyprus, up to 500 km from the coast of Gaza for the most distant boats and about 100 kilometres for the closest.

“It’s turning out to be a major general strike; the data we have from last night shows workers are determined to treat today as a major day of struggle,” said the CGTP’s General Secretary in the morning outside one of the striking schools in Lisbon.

In Bolivia, mobilizations against austerity and an agrarian reform favourable to the concentration of land have weakened the government of Rodrigo Paz and his neoliberal policies.

Is this the beginning of a shift in dynamics? To attempt to formulate an answer, our perspective cannot begin with the latest election results, but rather with an analysis of Andalusian political history. In this regard, we operate on a fundamental premise: there is no electoral victory without a prior social and political victory. In the south of the Spanish state, the right wing did not conquer the institutions by chance in 2018; it did so by first winning the battle for "common sense", displacing collective frames of reference and colonising the public agenda long before the ballot box validated its hegemony.

The clashes over the next 20 days on the streets, in workplaces and on social media in Colombia will determine not only the name of the country’s new president – between a neo-fascist and a progressive – but also, to a large extent, the balance of power in South America. The Colombian presidential elections, with a second round on 21 June, are a precursor to the Brazilian elections in November and are of central importance to the construction of Trump’s “shield” on the continent.

“May 11th will be etched in the collective memory of the Valencian people. The teachers, the grassroots and union movement, and the entire educational community will make history for the dignity, determination, and strength they demonstrated during weeks of mobilisation and organisation. The indefinite strike is already a moral and political victory against an arrogant, authoritarian government that is completely out of touch with the reality of educational institutions.”

While President Donald Trump is busy with a war on Iran, plans for Cuba, and his rebuilding of the White House, Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Advisor, a rightwing racist, works relentlessly to arrest, imprison, and deport more immigrants and make America whiter. As they do, they continue to encounter resistance from politicians, lawyers, and protestors who oppose them, taking risks to do so.