By Miguel Sorans, a leader of the Socialist Left and the IWU-FI
After the primary elections, it is essential to take stock of the results of the Left Front Unity (FITU), both for the union, youth, women’s, dissident, socio-environmental and left fighters of our country, as well as for the world revolutionary left that follows with expectations this unprecedented experience of the unity of the Trotskyist left.
From Socialist Left and the IWU-FI, we have always valued the importance of this unity. From the beginning, we have promoted the unity of the left and that is why we were enthusiastic founders, together with PTS and PO, of the FIT in 2011. For us it has been a priority to defend that unity and to always be open to adding other sectors of the non-reformist left, placing participation in workers’ and popular struggles at the centre and not elections (of course we know that we have yet to achieve unified participation in workers’ and popular conflicts. Thus, we have always opposed the FITU dividing itself in electoral matters by using the primaries.
It is necessary to see what happened in the primary elections of 13 August and how the Left Front continues, both for the presidential election in October and in the future. And even more so when emerges the regrettable and dangerous phenomenon of the electoral triumph of a far-right expression such as Javier Milei.
A resounding victory for the PTS-Socialist Left, headed by Myriam Bregman
We could summarise the main conclusions: 1) There was a resounding victory for Myriam Bregman-Nicolás del Caño, accompanied by candidates from Socialist Left such as “Pollo” Sobrero, Mónica Schlothauer, Juan Carlos Giordano, Jorge Adaro, Mercedes Trimarchi, Graciela Calderon, Liliana Olivero and Angélica Lagunas, among others. It achieved a difference of 70 to 30 per cent over PO-MST.
2) The FITU had a good election, with 628,893 votes, only slightly below the 2019 primaries, despite the turn to the electoral right that took place in this election and the unfortunate fact that the FITU presented two slates.
3) Going in two slates weakened the brutal electoral fight against the bosses’ candidates. From Socialist Left we have maintained, since the beginning of 2023, the need to achieve a united formula of Myriam Bregman (PTS) with Gabriel Solano (PO) and to maintain the pre-existing agreements on a unified slate. Unfortunately, the divisive and self-proclaimed attitude of the PO and the MST prevented this. They ended up paying for it with a big electoral defeat.
4) Given the doubts that may exist among the supporters of the FITU, the front will remain united. For the October elections, we will integrate both slates into a single one to fight against Milei and the other candidates of the system.
The campaign and the political drift of the PO and the MST
We need to mention the all-or-nothing campaign PO-MST carried out, with the presidential ticket of Gabriel Solano (PO) and Vilma Ripoll (MST). In their electoral desperation, they launched all kinds of false political accusations against Myriam Bregman, the PTS and the candidates of Socialist Left—even personal ones, like the one they made against our comrade Liliana Olivero from Córdoba.
From the beginning, PO-MST tried to justify its divisionism by saying that it was not “a dispute for positions” but in “defence of the FITU”: “the left must have a policy independent of Kirchnerism” […] “Bregman and Del Caño represent a left that adapts to these variants” […] “it sticks to variants of the regime” (Communiqué PO-MST 20 May 2023).
We rejected these denunciations explaining that they were a machination, a lie in which PO was enthusiastically seconded by the opportunism of MST. It is a “smokescreen to justify the installation of a slate of their own for the primaries to see if they can get better parliamentary positions and be the head of the list at any cost” (statement by Socialist Left Central Committee, 23/05/2023).
The drift of the PO-MST list’s accusations did not stop there but got worse and worse. They went so far as to accuse Myriam Bregman of being a “racist”. The candidate Vanina Biassi, of PO in CABA, maintained that: “The party of Bregman and Del Caño, which decided to educate the militancy in a racist direction towards the piquetero movement” (Report in El Grito del Sur and Feminacida, 01/08/2023). A very serious and false attack, disproved by reality, since both the PTS and Socialist Left have always been in solidarity with the piquetero movement and its demands. To accuse leaders of the Trotskyist left of being racist, as the PO is pushing and the MST is supporting, is shameful. We must ask ourselves how they can continue in front of “racists”.
But the slander and lies did not stop there either. Both the PO and the MST made their propaganda, spots and leaflets claiming that the list of the PTS-Izquierda Socialista “does not support the struggle in the slums” and “does not stand up” to the powerful. Solano went so far as to say, in various interviews, that comrade Bregman and the PTS-Socialist Left list was “a left that expressed an intellectual middle class, that did not go to put its feet in the mud, to the neighbourhoods and factories”, as they did in “150 neighbourhoods of La Matanza”.
Solano’s remarks are the expression of an unbelievable and regrettable political drift. He has gone beyond the limits; which I hope he will be able to retrace. All this discredits the revolutionary left in the eyes of the bosses and right-wing sectors that always attack it as “marginal” or “non-existent”. This is such a lying and serious statement, that Solano, the PO and the MST turned against them, because of the general repudiation they received. To make such a statement is to deny the decades-long history of Trotskyism in Argentina, fighting from within the workers’ movement. How can Solano, the PO and the MST dare to say that we are not in the struggles? They deny the existence of comrade Vilca and our comrade Ivan Blacutt, imprisoned in the Jujuy rebellion. They deny the existence of “Pollo” Sobrero heading for the combative railway section of Haedo. They ignore the comrades and comrade teachers of Izquierda Socialista and the PTS in all the struggles of the country.
As if all this were not enough, in Córdoba, the PO and the MST joined forces to attack our comrade, Liliana Olivero. The candidate of the MST, Luciana Echevarría, said that: “they do not add “eternal” candidates like Liliana Olivero” and “it is necessary to renew the left” (interview in Crónica Matinal). Soledad Diaz of the PO pointed out that: “the most extreme case of this electoral deviation is Liliana Olivero, who has been a repeated candidate for 30 years” (La Voz, 06/08/2023), thus wanting to sully the great trajectory of the struggle of our comrade. What Echevarría seems to forget is that in her party, the MST, Vilma Ripoll, has been a candidate for nearly 25 years. And in the case of Soledad Díaz (PO), it would be good to remind her that Néstor Pitrola (PO) must have a record of years as a candidate. This is not questionable for us. It would not occur to us to say that it is bad for Pitrola or Ripoll to reiterate themselves as candidates. In the case of Luciana Echevarría herself, she has also been a candidate for several years. What is questionable is that she was a candidate first and ended up being elected as a deputy in 2011 for the alliance, made up of the MST, which was then headed by the liberal pro-Macrista Luis Juez. Despite this, Socialist Left never questioned that Echevarría was a FITU candidate when years later the MST joined our alliance.
The PO-MST list paid for its divisiveness with a heavy political defeat.
The Solano (PO)-Ripoll (MST) list reaped what it sowed. That is why it suffered a heavy electoral defeat. At the level of the presidential formulas, they lost 70 to 30 per cent. Of the 24 provinces, the formula headed by Bregman won in 21. The PO-MST list only won in Catamarca, Chaco and Salta and CABA for City Councillor. In Córdoba, the list of national deputies, headed by Liliana Olivero, won by 64 to 36 per cent over that of Soledad Diaz and Luciana Echevarria. In Neuquén, the list of national deputies headed by the teacher union leader, our Izquierda Socialista comrade Angélica Lagunas, won by 72 to 28 per cent. In La Matanza, the most working class and popular district of the Buenos Aires conurbation, where according to Solano they had a presence in 150 neighbourhoods, the PTS-Izquierda Socialista list for mayor and councillors won with 20,061 votes to the PO-MST’s 12,174.
From now on, we hope that what has happened can help the leaders of the PO and the MST to reflect and change. Political differences and debates will undoubtedly continue, and rightly so, but they must be done in a respectful and organised way.
Towards the October elections, the FITU must work united to strike together and call for more unity to the rest of the left, to face the electoral fight against the ultra-right Milei and all the bosses’ variants. But knowing that the solution to the social drama that the working class, the youth and the popular sectors are experiencing will not come through the elections but through the workers’ and popular struggles against this government and the next one to take office.
