IV409 - February 2009

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On Sunday 15 February, the Venezuelan people voted by 54.86% to 45.13% in favour of a constitutional amendment to remove limits on the number of times candidates can stand for election to public office.

Amir Khadir of the new leftist party Québec solidaire (Qs) was elected to the Québec National Assembly in Montréal’s Mercier riding late last year. With this historic victory, Qs established itself as a credible option for an ‘alternative Québec’. Although it has only 3.8% of the overall vote, Québec solidaire made significant advances in 8 other ridings. For example, Françoise David came in second in Gouin riding with 32% of the vote.

On Thursday 5 February, 2009 the 18th Congress of the LCR (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire – Revolutionary Communist League) decided on its dissolution, as a prelude to the foundation of the New Anti-capitalist Party. The LCR - “the Ligue” -, was an adventure which, under different names (Cercles des diffuseurs de Rouge, Ligue communiste, Front communiste révolutionnaire and finally Ligue communiste révolutionnaire) lasted nearly 40 years.

After a long preparation the New Anti-Capitalist party has been formally launched amid a welter of publicity in the mainstream media. The launch of the new party coincided with an opinion poll showing NAP spokesperson Olivier Besancenot was the most popular opposition politician in France.

According to Karl Marx historic tragedies repeat as a farce. Considering, what is nowadays labelled as “Neo-Keynesianism” concerning the official crisis management of the bourgeois state, one gets the impression, that what Keynes intended origi nally, in fact is re-performed as a farce….

From the 1970s to the ‘90s three out of the five countries that comprise Central America—El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua—were involved in civil wars and a fourth, Honduras, was turned into a staging group for the U.S.-backed contras. These countries suffered tremendous displacement, caused by war and poverty. Many were forced into exile for economic and/or political reasons, and most fled north, to Mexico, the United States and Canada. (Panama is often added, but is not considered part of Central America.)

Approximately 600 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and Men of Zimbabwe Arise (MOZA) demonstrated for several blocks to Parliament in Harare on Tuesday. The peaceful group sang as they marched from the Karigamombe Centre up Kwame Nkrumah Ave, past the offices of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to Parliament.

On 15 February, the Venezuelan people will decide whether to eliminate the limit on consecutive terms of office currently included in the Constitution. If this proposal put forward by the National Assembly is approved, Hugo Chavez will be able to stand again in the next presidential elections.

The crisis of 1929 unleashed inter-imperialist trade conflicts which then contributed to transforming the crisis into a long depression and a world war. The capitalist crisis unleashed in 2008 will be all the deeper in that it has been delayed by a level of indebtedness without precedent in capitalism. It could be all the more devastating if the first protectionist measures and the premises of trade conflicts are confirmed.