IV448 - May 2012

Mexico’s voters face an increasingly murky choice in the rapidly approaching July 1 national election between three conservative, pro-business candidates and a populist candidate who until recently offered Keynesian solutions to the country’s endemic problems of inadequate economic growth, huge economic and social disparities, and a political establishment dominated by and in the service of a handful of oligopolies. All of the candidates promise to address Mexico’s greatest problem, creating enough jobs for its citizens, three of them principally by freeing business from government, and one of them through greater government intervention. While all of the candidates support the capitalist system, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has spoken most directly to the needs of the country’s small businessmen, working class, farmers and the poor. For the last few months, however, he has striven to garner more support from business by adopting a more conservative economic program virtually indistinguishable from the others.

One month before the United Nations Conference Rio+20, peoples of the world don’t see any positive advances in the negotiation process going on within the Official Conference. Indeed, neither the balance of agreements concluded in Rio 92 nor the ways to work on the crises’ causes, have been discussed. The discussions focus on a set of fake proposals called « Green economy » and on the implementation of a new international environmental governance, that would facilitate their setting-up.

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Popular anger, mass protests and leadership from Trayvon Martin’s parents, the African-American community and its organizations have exposed the racial divisions that run throughout U.S. society.

The big, colourful and determined demonstration on Saturday the 19th of May was a fantastic conclusion to the three days of “Blockupy Frankfurt”. Anticapitalist language and consciousness appeared throughout the demo in slogans, stickers and leaflets.

After having agreed to numerous austerity attacks, Geert Wilders’ far right PVV suddenly withdrew its support to the right-wing coalition, and left the Netherlands without a government in April. The Socialist Party is doing remarkably well in polls and might become the biggest party after elections in September. In Netherlands, as elsewhere on the continent, traditional politics is being stirred by opposition to harsh austerity measures, which are being felt hard by ordinary people.

The outcome of the November 2012 election is clear: It will be the most vicious and racist in modern U.S. history, and by far the most expensive of all time. Are critical issues at stake in this political year? Absolutely, yes — but not the questions we’ll get to vote on.

We print the speech made by Dharmasiri Lankapeli, member of the Politbureau of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP – Sri Lanka section of the Fourth International) at the joint opposition demonstration and rally on International Workers Day in Jaffna.

Six months after the formation of the Monti government, the popularity the professor-ministers had enjoyed through the discredit which had accompanied the end of the Berlusconi era has begun to wane, even if the horizon does not present any credible political alternative.

Despite an unprecedented campaign calling for a massive turnout in the Algerian parliamentary elections of May 10, 2012, the official results only show a rate of participation of 42%, or 6% more than the 2007 elections. Presented as a rerun of November 1, 1954 or as another July 5, 1962, the election of May 10 was not credible for more than 57% of the voters and thus does not constitute a means of exit from the crisis.