South Africa:  Communists support ANC in election but say “no blank check”

South Africa held general elections on May 6-8.  Although there had been some discussion previously of the South African Communist  Party (SACP) running its own separate candidates, in the end the communists pushed for support for the African National Congress’ incumbent president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and for ANC candidates at other levels.  Preliminary results indicate that the ANC has once more won a majority in parliament and Ramaphosa has been reelected—in both cases, with somewhat reduced margins.

Yet the SACP had warned in its election manifesto that its call for support for the ANC was “no blank check”.   The document credits President Ramaphosa with beginning the job of cleaning up the corruption and “state capture” that characterized the government of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, but points out that there is still a lot of work to do on that front. Furthermore, the SACP calls for increased struggle to meet the people’s needs for jobs, better incomes, housing, health care and education.

 

South America:  Ten Communist Parties lay out strategy for struggle

In the context of the hemispheric right-wing surge, ten of South America’s Communist Parties met in Montevideo, Uruguay, in late April to establish a joint strategy of struggle.  The parties that got together were the Communist Party of Argentina, the Communist Party of Brazil, the Brazilian Communist Party, the Communist Parties of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, and the “Red Fatherland” Communist Party of Peru.

In their April 29 summary of the meeting, the ten parties pointed out a dangerous situation in which not only is neo-liberalism back full blast, but also extremist right wing governments have come to power in Brazil and Colombia.  All this must be seen as a major imperialist counteroffensive against gains made by the left and Working class in recent decades.  The parties called for enhanced unity and emphasized the crucial role of the Sao Paolo Forum and other multinational bodies which include left wing parties in and out of power.  Specifically the parties reiterated their support for socialist Cuba and Bolivarian Venezuela, and called for the release from prison of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

 

United Kingdom:  Communists will boycott the European Parliament vote

The Communist Party of Britain is boycotting the May 23 election for the European Parliament, the legislative body of the European Union.  Party leader John Foster referred to those elections as  “illegitimate in Britain” in a meeting of the Political Committee of the party, because British voters had already called for Britain’s withdrawal from the multinational body three years ago.

The British communists oppose the European Union as a capitalist controlled entity whose rules make progress toward a more just society impossible.  They are calling for early national elections to create a left led government of the Labor Party.

 

Turkey: Communists rejoice in election victory

The Communist Party of Turkey had reason to celebrate the results of recent elections, since their party member Fatih Mehmet Macoglu won a seat as mayor of Tunceli in Eastern Anatolia in the March 31 vote.

However, the party is not so happy with the May 6 decision by the Supreme Electoral Council to cancel the results of the mayoral elections in Istanbul, Turkey’s most populous city (fifteen million inhabitants). The communists blame the decision of the Supreme Electoral Council to cancel the victory of Ekrem İmamoğlu of the “Kemalist” Republican People’s Party, on the illegitimate influence of the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of the right wing “Islamist” Justice and Development Party, or AKP.
According to the communists, the decision of the Supreme Electoral Council reveals the basic lack of real democracy in the country.  They have strong political differences with the Republican People’s party, but nevertheless they consider İmamoğlu to be the legitimately  elected mayor of Istanbul and have decided not to run their own candidate in the replacement election scheduled for June 23.

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