ELECTIONS:
CAMPO
EQUENO
22 ABRIL
MAO
DHA 30 POON
ONON JELLION
WORKERS
PARTIES
WIN
ABSOLUTE
MAJORITY by A. UDRY & C.MICHALOUX
After the April 25 elections in Portugal, the international bourgeois press tried to overcome its disappointment and mask its surprise by declaring that the similarity in the results of this year's legislative elections and last year's elections to the Constituent Assembly was, after all, only an expression of "Portugal's getting used to its young democracy. " Nonetheless, the bourgeois press let its real concern show through. As the April 27 issue of the Journal de Genève, newspaper of the Swiss banks, put it "Thus, the popular consultation did not allow for defining the leadership that was supposed to take over in Portugal henceforth." After calling for and desiring a rightist electoral victory, which would have been the crowning touch to November 25, 1975, the European bourgeoisie has been unable to restrain Its onnoyance. The apostles of "liberal democracy, " running with the support of the European bourgeoisie, did not carry the victory that had been so noisily announced in January and February. A historic exception The workers parties and organizations - SP, CP, UDP, MES, LCI, PRT* - won 53 percent of the vote. A year ago, the parties and organizations of the workers movement had totalled 58 percent. Their overall score thus declined slightly, but basically it still expressed the relationship of social forces (with regional fluctuations, of course) that November 25 was unable to alter qualitatively. Better, what must be stressed is the historical uniqueness of the persistence of such results, in fact, if is the first time in capitalist Europe that the parties of the working class have obtained the absolute majority twice in succession in such a situation. By way of comparison, it may be recalled that in the January 1919 elections to the Constituent Assembly in Germany, the Social Democracy and the USDP (independent socialist party) won only (1) 45.7 percent of the vote. In a very general sense, the April 25 elections in Portugol express the combination of three phenomena that clearly threaten to be manifested again, beyond the Portuguese border, during coming electoral consultations in "southern Europe," First, the results reflect the depth of the general crisis of social relations in capitalist society, and this after a period of economic growth that has resulted in the social reinforcement of the proletarlat. Second, they affirm the aspiration among the toiling masses for a "change in society, "that is, they show that socialism is on the agenda. In his explanation of the results, one Portuguese commentator stressed one of the decisive factors: "The subjective content of the word 'socialism' has extremely positive connotations, even for the less politicized masses. " (Opção, April 29.) *SP: Socialist party; CP: Communist party; UDP: União Democrática Popular - Popular Democratic Union; MES: Movimento de Esquerda Socialista - Left Socialist Movement; LCi: Liga Comunista Internacionalista - International ist Communist League; PRT: Partido Revolucionario dos Trabalhadores — Revolutionary Workers party-
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Finally, the growing pressure of the rise of the workers in Spain, France, and Italy made itself felt on the development of Portuguese political life. Defensive struggles and April 25 April 25 cannot be seen as a direct continuation of November 25, 1975. In fact, while the operation of the Amadora commandos forced a retreat, by the end of January and the beginning of February the industrial and agricultural workers were engaged in a series of defensive struggles which were echoed in the second great wave of unionization of the Portuguese workers. (See INPRECOR, No.49, April 15, 1976.) Electorally, in face of the triumphant proclamations of the right and the proliferation of attempts at intimidation, a defensive reflex came to the fore; it had been triggered in the factories, offices, and agricultural enterprises and was reflected in the advance of the trade-union organization of the workers movement. Of course, the election results also expressed the unevenness of development of this process, an unevenness that is subtended by the differences in social structure among the various regions of the country. In the northern districts, for example, the percentages won by the right, as well as the shift within the rightist vote toward the CDS (Centro Democrático Social - Social Democratic Center), reflect the strengthening of a reactionary pole that has sunk roots among the traditional petty bourgeoisie. The election scores of the CDS and the PPD (Partido Popular Democrático - Popular Democratic party, the largest bourgeois party) totaled more than 50 percent in the district of Viana do Castelo, Braga, Villa Real, Bragança, Aveiro, Viseu, Guarda, and Leiria (see map). These districts include about 33 percent of the population of the country. On the other hand, the parties and organizations of the workers movement won absolute majorities, sometimes overwhelming ones, in the districts located south of the Tagus River and in and around the big cities: Beja (82%), Coimbra, Evara (76%), Faro, Lisbon, Portalegre, Porto, Santarém, Setübal (see map). These districts include about 59 percent of the population. While the NorthSouth division is real, it would nevertheless be erroneous to think that a total chasm separates the two regions of the country. In fact, the SP and the CP, as well as the organizations of the far left, managed to assemble a not negligible part of the vote in some northern districts: 41% in Leiria, 46% in Castelo Branco, 38% in Braga. Obviously, in these regions the SP is broadly dominant within the left, which simply reflects the uneven development of class consciousness. Partial reorganization of the right In a general context of social polarization determined by the resistance of the toiling masses to the attack of the employers and the government, a slight progression, 10 combined with a realignment, went on within the bourgeois camp. Taking advantage of the mobilizations of the CAP (Confederation of Portuguese Farmers) and the positions taken by the CIP (Confederation of Portuguese Industrialists), the CDS presented Itself as an opposition party that had not been involved in government wheeling and dealing, aiming at turning around the relationship of forces in the terrifory occupied by the bourgeois parties. During the month of April CDS leader Freitos do Amaral made many predictions, setting his vote target at more than 20 percent. In fact, the CDS won about 16 percent, so the objective was not attained, Granted, in the North, especially the interior of the North, the CDS is taking shape as the political pole and organizer of the reactionary counteroffensive. The shift of PPD votes to the CDS since the 1975 election was clear in the main northem districts (Aveiro, Braga, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Guarda, Villa Real, Viseu, and even Porto). Nevertheless, on a national scale the CDS was unable to reduce the place occupied by the PPD sufficiently to appear as "Alternative '76, " a goal conceived under the sign of antisocialism. From this standpoint, the result constitutes a setback and is fully part of the crisis of bourgeois leadership. Hence, the CDS has fallen back on a proposal for a "government of national salvation, " which is conceived of as a CDS-PPD-SP coalition. In oddition, it is placing its hopes in the election of an army candidate to the post of president of the republic, which would counteract the dynamic of the electoral results unfavorable to the CDS. In fact, the president will command very significant powers: choosing the prime minister, supreme commander of the army, president of the Council of the Revolution. The CDS candidate, Galvão de Melo, in reserve in the ranks of the army, has also become the CDS's candidate for president. This time, the CDS has been compelled to stake its hopes on an "Alternative "77, " which would be guaranteed by an officer. Although its electoral strength was almost maintained, the elections also confirmed the failure of the project of the PPD, which ever since September 1974 has been trying to put itself forward as the "great center party" holding hegemony in the bourgeois camp. Although the PPD picked up some votes that had gone to the SP in April 1975, it was unable to win enough of these votes to claim to represent a broad social spectrum ranging from industrial capital to the traditional petty bourgeoisie to the so-called new middle classes. On the other hand, the PPD lost ground to the CDS among the layers whose anti-working-class mobilization has been strongest (in Veiro, Braga, Bragança, Guarda, Viseu, and Villa Real). Its place in the various coalition governments, like the effects of its "Social Democratistic" demagogy, prevented it from effectively eating into the voters mobilized during the assemblies of Rio Major (against the agrarian reform). Thus, at the end of its campaign, the PPD was compelled to ease up on its anti-SP and antiworker propaganda in order once again to highlight the theme of Social Democracy, thus hoping to capture a broader fringe of the former SP votes. Today the PPD will have to rework its coalition policy, whatever the difficulties. Sa Carneiro's succession of turns on the
VOTE FOR SP AND CP
32,25%
V CASTELO
25,23%
29,67%
BRAGANCA
36,21%
V. REAL
BRAGA
PORTO
49,707
(34,61%
GUARDA
VISEU
AVEIRO 6
25.28%
28,04%
COIMBRA
48,74%
C BRANCO
38,37%
43.04%
LEIRIA
SANTAREM
54,35%
PORTALEGRE
63,97%
60,22%
LISBOA
EVORA
73,34%
SETUBAL
76,499
BEJA
75,67%
FARO
59,19% question of his party's participation in the government reflected the party's latent crisis and in turn confirmed the crisis of bourgeois leadership. Once again, the PPD must aim at an alliance with the SP (a difficult operation in view of the tensions within Mr. Soares's party), while still calling for the election of a general as part.
of the continuation of the reorganization of forces in the upper reaches of the army since November 25, 1976.
The «left majority»
The SP engaged in an intense electoral campaign. The size of its meetings indicates that it has a massive popular audience. Even though the themes of the campaign
VOTE POR PPD AND CDS
56,15%
CASTELO
53.92%
V REAL
BRAGANÇA
BRAGA
61,42%
57.09%
42,67%
PORTO
57,490
VISEU
GUARDA
AVEIRO
57,75%
63,42%
COIMBRA
39,78%
C BRANCO
42,37%
50,54
LEIRIA
SANTAREM
PORTALEGRE
33,30%
24.01%
29,31%
LISBOA
EVORA
17,16%
SETUBAL
12,79%
BEJA
12,40%
26,02
FARD
("reconstruction of the country") were not to the left of the themes it stressed in 1975, in is obvious that the
SP vote often assumed the meaning of a vote "against reaction" and even for defense of the gains of the "revolutionary process,
"especially democratic rights. This was manifested above all in the zones in which reaction is mostactive. On the other hand, the SP lost the most votes - to the CP — in the districts with strong proletarian compositions in which the experiences of struggle, workers control, and land occupation hod been most generalized and advanced and in which the resistance to capital's counterattack was strongest: Evora, Portalegre, Setübal, Lisbon, and Beja. The change in the
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PORTUGAL SP vote is a reflection of three phenomena, the combination of which led to a 3% decline in the SP total: a shift to the PPD, which resulted essentially in the SP's loss of the votes it had garnered in 1975 on the basis of erecting a "barrier against communism"; a shift to the CP in the workers zones and the areas of large-scale agricultural enterprises, where people were voting against the economic and social policy of the sixth govemment; a strengthening of the SP in the most politically backward regions (Braga, Viana do Castelo), where the SP did pick up some of the vote that hod gone to the pro-CP MDP in 1975), where the SP gathered the fruits of the slow progress in class consciousness and resistance to counterrevolution. 7. Electorally, the very breadth of the territory occupied by the SP makes this party suffer the effects of social polarization. This also gives on impetus to tension within the Social Democratic ranks. On the one hand, while significant layers of wage-earners and militont trade unionists voted SP in the hope of defending their social gains, the leadership of the SP declared: "It is necessary to explain to the working class and the trade-union leaders that they must limit their demands in a realistic manner, If social agitation continues and if productivity declines, this can only benefit the right. " (Mario Soares in A Luta, April 29) Such a statement recalls the reactionary imprecafions of the British bourgeois journal The Economist, which wrote in an editoriol in Its May I issue: "The (economic) problem can be alleviated by economic help from abroad. But however much money the EEC and the United States might make available in credits and easy loans, someone in Portugal will have to carry the can for the economic hardships that lie in store as the coun try tries to recover from its last two years. " And Soares has said who that someone is: the Portuguese proletariot. Such an orientation can only stimulate discontent among the trode-union militants of the SP. On the other hand, in face of the strengthening of the offensive of capital and reaction, a tendency toward unity is taking root among the workers and collides with the policy of the SP leadership with respect to the CP. The united demonstration of trade unions influenced by the SP and CP on May Day concretized this pressure for unification among the ranks of the proletariat with all its implications, including its implications for the formation of a future government. But it is also true that a part of the SP electorate, to whom the party leadership is sensitive, voted SP as a way of pronouncing themselves for an SP-PPD coalition. This antimony is certainly not one of the smallest factors impelling Soares to be so insistent in proposing a purely SP government. For the moment, the SP finds itself facing yet another difficulty: the presidential election. The Soares leadership had indicated its agreement with the choice of a "military candidate of national unity. " But after these elections, the insistence of the right, which is a minority in parliament, on nominating an "army strongman" is throwing the SP off balance, for the 5P's choice will 12 be analyzed by a part of its own rank and file in terms of the possible support the PPD, and maybe even the CDS, could extent to such a candidate. The right had hoped to cut the CP down to size electorally. The aim was to isolate the Communist party so that it would no longer be the party of the working class and the agricultural workers. This project failed. Granted, the CP picked up some of the former votes of the MDP, which did not run in the elections, stepping down in favor of the CP. But these votes were dispersed in three directions: SP, CP, and far left. In addition, the CP picked up some of the votes that had gone to the centrist organizations like the FSP (Frente Socialista Popular -Popular Socialist Front) and MES in 1975. Nevertheless, the most significant results were obtained in the proletarian bastions, where the CP stood in the lead: 43.99% in Beja, 43.04% in Evora, 44.34% in Setübal. Likewise, the CP advanced in other districts of the South, where its scores were not at all negligible: 21.94% in Lisbon, 22.01% in Portalegre, 16.07% in Santarém. The CP, whose trade-union base runs deep, was confirmed as the party rooted in the backbone of the Portuguese working class (the Lisbon industrial belt and the Alentejo), which poses even more sharply the question of the unity of the proletarian ranks. On the other hand, the CP's positions in the North are very weak. During the preparations for the elections, the CP cleverly made people forget its refusal to stimulate a united response to the employers' attack, putting the emphasis on the theme of the left government that, together with the Council of the Revolution, will defend and consolidate liberty and other conquests. " (Avante, April 29.) The CP thus responded to the unitary sentiment of broad sectors of the masses, and this was combined with its partial opposition to the sixth government. Moreover, the CP continued to stress this less delicate theme rather than that of the designation of a general as president of the republic. In fact, while able to accept a candidate of "national unity" such as Army Chief of Staff Eanes only with difficulty, the CP nevertheless does not want to frontally oppose a choice that would obtain a rather broad consensus among army circles. Especially since today it is not as easy to play on the various tendencies in the army as it was in the autumn of 1975. The far left marks time The electoral subsiding of the far left reflects the retreat of November 25, which was also expressed in a strengthened tendency to "make your vote count, "which aided the CP and, marginally, the UDP, the only organization left of the CP with a deputy in the Constituent Assembly. A part of the "revolutionary left" paid the price for its pre-November 25 policy and its turn toward an orientation of "struggle against fascism" without any precise differentiation from the CP or real alternative to it. In
1975 the MES received 57, 682 votes; this time it got 30,984. In 1975 this was how the MES characterized the electoral results, which gave 58% of the vote to the parties claiming allegiance to the working class: "(The elections) could only have favored the bourgeoisie, politically represented by the employers' party that is the PPD and by the Social Democratic leadership of the SP. ... The SP may receive many votes in the bourgeois ballot boxes, but it has nothing to do with the frode-union struggle of the workers; before and after April 25, 1974, it has had nothing to do with the most important struggle experiences of the workers. (Esquerda Socialista, May 7, 1975.) This time, the MES headlined: "The people have voted against fascism." The MES weekly Poder Popular continued: "The majority of the Portuguese people have rejected the fascist and fascistic theses of the rightist parties. Nevertheless, the growth of the CDS shows that fascism is a real threat. The SP losses reflect the weakening of Social Democracy. But the SP has a very broad electoral scope, which reflects its influence among the hesitant petty bourgeoisie, which was not led along by the working class but nevertheless did not adhere to fascism. " (May 4, 1976) Given the line of its analysis of the "fascist threat, " its characterization of the SP, and its lack of understanding of the process of development of class consciousness, the MES is incapable of appreciating the real significance of these elections and the reflection they offer of the relationship of social forces in Portugal. Moreover, a prisoner of its own triumphalist sectarianism, the MES declared: "The present political situation, the illusions upheld among the masses by the reformists, while they hit us electorally, reducing our vote to that of the clearly militant voters,.. does not hurt us; on the contrary, it strengthens us on the decisive terrain of the workers and trade-union struggle. " (Poder Popular, May 4, 1976.) Within the for left, the UDP, a Maoist organization (see INPRECOR No. 49, April 15) confirmed its dominant role and its growing implantation in the Lisbon industrial belt and in the Alentejo. It received 91,084 votes. It took advantage of the right turn of the CP after November 25, 1975, and thus succeeded in acquiring some influence in the bastions of old communist tradition, where the themes of the antifascist struggle and a certain "economist radicalism" are deeply rooted. As for the Liga Comunista Internacionalista, sympathizing organization of the Fourth International, which was barred from the airwaves for one week during the comBUy
HADORES LIDA COMUNISTS LE INTERNACIÓNA STA paign on the grounds of "attacking the Council of the Revolution, " it won 16, 186 votes (up from 10,732 in 1975). The audience for the campaign of the Trotskyists was undeniable, and the response was real to themes such as the convocation of a democratic congress of the trade unions, the denunciation of the pact between the political parties and the Council of the Revolution, and the raising of the slogan. "For an SP-CP government directly responsible to a democratic congress of all the unions. " (See INPRECOR, No.47/48, April 1.) As for the Partido Revolucionario dos Trabalhadores, which claims allegiance to the Fourth International and ran in the elections for the first time, it won 5,144 votes. Its central slogan was "For an SP government without capitalists or generals. At a time when almost all the organizations of the far left are trying, without great chance of success, to present ex-general Otelo de Carvalho as a candidate for the presidential elections, the LCI insists on the need to oppose the generals with a "workers candidate expressing the unity of the workers and able to advance that unity." In addition, our comrades denounce "the accords out of which a candidate will emerge having constitutional powers that annul the constitution... This system of power is intended to allow the military hierarchy and the bourgeois parties to win in the ministries what they lost in the elections." (LCI press conference, A Capital, April 30, 1976.) The crisis is open The electoral results achieved by the parties and organizations of the workers movement lend full importance to the designation of a candidate for president of the republic. There are many who would like to see a candidate of "national unity, " but the absolute majority won by the SP, CP, and far left complicates this choice. In fact, this year's electoral results are not being read the same way as last year's. In the wake of November 25 and the political offensive of the PPD and the CDS (even though these parties now need a broad coalition more than ever), the workers are strongly tending to add up the votes under two columns, SP-CP on the one hand and PPD-CDS on the other. This proletarian reflex upsets more than one clever parliamentary calculation. Thus, a good part of the discussion around a choice of a military candidate for president of the republic centers on the orientation the future candidate will adopt on the question of what kind of government to form, since the president plays a decisive role in this domain. Thus, with 53 percent of the vote going to the workers parties, it is no accident that Costa Gomes is again being proposed by various currents as a possible candidate. It is common knowledge that he leans toward a "left government." The leadership of the SP has hastened to make known its disogreement with such a solution. In spite of the embarrassment caused by the PPD's excessively overt support for the present chief
PORTUGAL of the general staff, Soares is aiming at Eanes, who, it is said, would be prepared to accept the formula of a minority SP government. Moreover, this formula may draw some support from the constitution, article 198 of which assures a certain stability, af least institutionally, to a minority government (the double barrier to motions of censure, for example). The "left current" in the SP leadership is sensitive to the pressure for unity from the ranks of the workers. It is therefore proposing a cut-rate alliance with the CP that takes on the air of blackmail. Antonio Reis, for example, declared: "The CP faces a difficult dilemma: either it allies with the right to bring down a democratic left government in which it does not hold posts, or, given the impossibility of explicitly supporting a government that dispenses with its presence, it abstains in the legislative assembly, making it possible for on SP government to stay in office. " (Opção, April 29.) For the moment, the CP is pressing full steam ahead in its offensive for a "left government, " especially since it con point to its own "electoral advances" and the relative decline of the SP. On May 6 Alvaro Cunhal affirmed at Campo Pequeno: "The CP once again clearly declares that it will not support an attempt by the SP to govern alone. " If is this trying to take advantage of the pressure for unity, with all the repercussions this can have on the ranks of the SP. Further, by emphasizing the necessity of a "left government" without openly counterposing anyone at all to Eanes, the CP also suggests that it would not be displeased by the designation of Costa Gomes. The CP has also taken core to state its clear refusal to support Carvalho. In addition, there is always Azevedo, who may still spoil the party by running himself. Designating the present chief of staff os the president would imply that a replacement would have to be found for the military post. This is another delicate question. Eanes had built his authority on the role he played in the November 25 operations. The choice of a general as president and the replacement of the general may once again exacerbate divisions among the leading cadre of the army. This is another facet of the crisis of bourgeois leadership. After first presenting Firmino Miguel, a good old Spinolist implicated in the attempted civilian coup of September 1974, the general staff had to back down. They were unable to arrive at a broad consensus. The name of Rocha Veiro is now being bandied about. In the final analysis, all this shifting about, even if it ends up in the nomination of Eanes to the presidency, reflects the permanence of social instability and the maintenance of the capacity of the workers to fight back, which was confirmed by the elections. The defeat of the right in the elections may therefore create a context that makes it easier to transform defensive struggles into a new offensive of the workers. This is not one of the smallest fears of the Portuguese bourgeoisie and its officers. May 6, 1976 14