Socialists Without Borders Statement
We congratulate FITU (AKA the Trotskyist left in Argentina) for their results obtained in the national elections of October 22, 2023, in which they received close to 800,000 votes (about 2.7% of the votes). FITU – the electoral coalition of the Workers’ Left Front-Unity – presented a presidential ticket headed by Miriam Bregman, a prominent human rights lawyer who is active in the Socialist Workers’ Party. We hope that this success strengthens the unity of the Argentine left and helps to prepare for the major struggles that are coming in the streets, workplaces, and in the struggles of oppressed communities, from the movement of the unemployed to the original communities.
During this campaign the left used effectively the political space it has won over many years of political struggle in the electoral arena, a gain that allows them to overcome the obstacles of the electoral system against minor parties. This was achieved despite the fact that they were limited by a polarization caused by the insurgence of the far-right populist candidacy of Javier Milei.
FITU conducted a national campaign against all bourgeois parties and carried the message of the revolutionary left, calling on workers and the oppressed to trust only in their own forces. Their message reached millions of voters who went to the polls on October 22.
In the runoff of the presidential elections in Argentina, which will take place on November 19, the two candidates with the most votes from the general elections will face each other. They are incumbent Minister of the Economy Sergio Massa – who came in first with 37% of the vote, and Javier Milei – who came in second with around 30% of the vote, an ultra-capitalist politician who proclaims himself indistinctly as libertarian or anarcho-capitalist. Milei – who debuted by alleging himself a political outsider – ended up begging for the support of the most rightwing establishment figures like Mauricio Macri and Patricia Bulrich.If Sergio Massa wins,
Argentine workers can expect austerity plans with budget cuts to social spending and privatizations to comply with the dictates of the IMF and US imperialism, for which he will count with the support of the nefarious Peronist union bureaucracy. If Javier Milei wins, workers can expect more cuts and privatizations, and at his side will seek to accommodate the union bureaucracy, which has no political principles and only defends economic interests and privileges before the highest bidder. A Milei government will also be a government that will violently repress in the streets all those who fight.
The challenge of the Argentine left is to organize the working class vanguard it influences and with it to fight on all fronts against the ‘national unity’ government proposed by both Massa and Milei. From Socialists Without Borders, we call to cast a blank vote in the runoff to repudiate both Massa and Milei, while preparing to build on the left unity demonstrated in the first round of the election.
