### Political recomposition after the general elections The results of the first round of the Peruvian elections on April 14 demonstrated two important points. Firstly they showed a massive rejection by the Peruvian masses of the Belaunde Terry government but secondly they demonstrated the absence of any real popular alternative.
The ruling, Accion Popular (AP) along with all the conservative parties received a derisory vote. Hardly surprising since under the AP government unemployment has reached 12% with 58% of the population underemployed and inflation running at 200%.
The Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) with 48% of the votes for their presidential candidate and 51% for their parliamentary representatives are set to win in the next round, as had been widely predicted.
The lack of a real popular alternative at the electoral level however, was rather sharply posed when the runner up in the first round, Alfonso Barrantes of the United Left (IU) announced on April 30, his withdrawal from the second round altogether. This party, with a genuine base inside the trade unions and the mass organizations in the shantytowns had done slightly less well than anticipated from the 1983 municipal election results. Following its withdrawal from the second round constitutional experts are now debating whether the second round has to go ahead.
the native bourgeoisie that has been ruined in the last five years) for a total change of direction from that imposed by the already decrepit government of the AP and the PPC.
The majority of the bourgeoisie is falling in behind the APRA, which since 1978 has had the public endorsement of the armed forces for assuming the government of the country. Those sections of the bourgeoisie that have become implicated in the present government and have profited from it, as well as the intermediate sectors that have lived a parasitic existence in recent years under the aegis of international finance capital, are digging in behind the AP and the PPC, which are condemned irrevocably to political and social isolation.
The future of the AP, which for thirty years has been the bourgeoisie's most perceptive populist-reformist party, will depend to a great extent on the health of its caudillo. It is clear that nobody is going to take Belaunde's place. The AP's political space has come to be occupied by the PPC, which has a social-Christian facade and conservative policy in the economic field. The PPC's leader, a shameless admirer of Pinochet, is on his way to becoming the leader of the sections of the bourgeoisie most closely associated with imperialism.
The middle strata have shifted toward the APRA. The working class and the semiproletarian layers in the cities and cominentarian lavers in the cities and the countryside have moved toward the IU. The change that occurred in 1979 in the social relationship of forces has been given an official expression by the APRA electoral victory, on the one hand, and by the continuing strength of a deeply rooted and extensively organized movement of the workers and poor masses, on the other. This movement has proved undefeatable, and through its political front, the IU, it managed to take second place behind the main bourgeois party (which is being put forward as the bourgeoisie's last card in the game of parliamentary alternatives).
It is always useful to gauge the subjective desires, the sentiments and feelings of every social force by analyzing the votes of masses of people belonging to different classes and strata. The struggle among the parties for the support of the electorate and the results achieved in it always offer data for testing our conception of the relationship of social forces in the country, and in particular of the importance of various slogans. I will try to make a brief analysis, although this has to be based only on the dispatches in the press and the reports over the radio. We will try to make a more detailed analysis later based on fuller information.
The new government will come out of a deepgoing crisis. It will try to maintain the system of bourgeois rule at the price of losing its credibility very rapidly, by trying to coexist with the military hierarchy. In fact, the country will remain divided between two regimes. One is the parliament, based on the constitution
International Viewpoint 20 May 1985
Esteban MARCOS
There were few surprises in the first round of the Peruvian elections. Most local and international commentators had agreed months before on what the outcome would be. Now we have to wait until the end of June to see the predictions fully confirmed. What is expected is that in the end APRA will make a clean sweep of the general elections, after winning a majority in both houses of parliament in these first-round elections.
If, as predicted, APRA scores an across-the-board victory, this will repeat, on a higher level and with more contradictions, the situation of one party holding all the power, as has been the case of the Accion Popular (AP) regime headed by the incumbent president, Belaunde Terry.
Of course, there is still the remote possiblility of a surprise. The United Left (IU) might win in the second round. The problem there is more the leadership of the front than any lack of readiness to unite and fight on the part of the toiling masses of the country. Nonetheless, the Marxist front is already the second strongest political force in Peru and the most serious parliamentary opposition to the APRA.
According to unofficial figures, Alan Garcia got 48% of the vote, and the APRA parliamentary candidates got 51%. To explain this outcome, the first thing that comes to eye is the collapse of the AP vote. There was a nose dive from the 47% won by Belaunde in 1980 to the 5% scored this time by Alva Orlandini. Another factor is that there was probably a shift of votes from the Partido Cristiano (PPC) and even from the IU to APRA.
The • electoral alliance called "Convergencia Democratica" (CODE) including the PPC, the Movimento de Bases Hayista (MBH - The Rank and File Movement Faithful to the Principles of Haya de la Torre, the traditional leader of the APRA who led the movement in a more radical phase of its trajectory, and the Independientes, went from 20% in 1980 to 12%. In November 1983, the IU got 30% of the vote. This time it got 23%. Finally, another factor that has to be considered is the number of spoiled ballots, which dropped from 18% in 1980 to 9% in these elections.
The fundamental thing is that under the surface, within the complex process of the class struggle in the country, a polarization is taking place between the two fundamental classes. The bourgeoisie is lining up behind the APRA, and the proletariat behind the IU. At the same time, the vast middle layers in the countryside and the cities swing back and forth.
The local and international comment on the April 14 elections summed up the result as "an overwhelming victory for the left," which was supposed to have gotten 70% against the "right." While this pattern did reflect, on the one side, the fears of the petty bourgeoisie about a revolutionary advance on the parliamentary front, it also reflected, on the other side, the desire of the great
adopted in 1979. The other is the most ferocious dictatorship in our history, whieh has been established in 18 provinces. For the military rulers of these provinces, the parliamentary democratic system often represents no more than an impediment.
To this state of affairs, you have to add the following factors: There is a constantly growing economic and social crisis. The working class has breached the walls of parliament. A revolutionary consciousness is developing rapidly among the masses, and it is reflected in the growth of extensive trade-union, neighborhood, professional, student, and women's organizations. On top of this, there are advances in democratic, mass selforganization represented by the growth of the People's Assemblies, the Defense Fronts, the open municipal council meetings, as the incipient structures for self-defense as embryos of people's power. An explosive situation
If we analyze all these factors, we can say that we are facing an explosive situation, and that the end of the political period inaugurated by the Constituent Assembly and the 1980 general elections will be followed by a buildup toward revolution. This will take place within a political framework defined by the existence of an APRA government with a majority in parliament, with an understanding with the military, and with a disciplined mass party apparatus, a nationalist-populist doctrine, and an authoritarian tradition. Obviously, before the hold of the future government can be broken, the masses will have to go through the experience that will begin in July after the elections. The course of the process will also be conditioned by the development of the contradictions in the APRA party between the nationalist and Social Democratic tendencies.
However, it would be infantile to think that given the present relationship of forces, the mobilizations of the working people against the economic ruin of the country, and the activity of the Partido Comunista Peruano "por el Sendero Luminoso de Mariategui" (PCP-SL - Peruvian Communist Party "for the Luminous Path of Mariategui") and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) that the APRA will be able to repeat, if not improve on, the experience of the last five years.
In the present stage, the IU remains the real political expression of the organized working people of the country. In recent months, it has been subjected to an intense campaign of slander and boycott. Every critical view expressed within it has been distorted by the press. State credit and subsidies have been cut off from the municipal governments controlled by the front. And to top it off there has been an attempt to create ernational Viewpoint 20 May 1985 the conditions for repressing the IU of the presidential candidate, wio tool by means of a McCarthy-type campaign it upon himself to decide the itinerary designed to identify it with the PCP (SL). and role of the speakers. On the other
All of these attacks, which are the in striking contrast, there was the war result of a bourgeois strategy, cannot obscure the fact that there are real differences in the IU, which, since they have not been resolved democratically, have limited its capacity for revolutionary action. This has resulted in the alienation of not inconsiderable middle strata, which have seen, through their own experience, the obstacles to the front carrying forward a revolutionary democratic program calling for deepgoing economic and social transformations.
As mayor of the city of Lima, companero Barrantes, the president of the IU and its presidential candidate, has replaced mass mobilization with diplomacy and maneuvers at the top. It has not taken long to see the consequences of this. Both the regime and the APRA have immediately taken advantage of this "sensible" attitude. Barrantes has not gotten the loans he asked for and still less the subsidies to which he is entitled. He is not given credit for anything, and the slanders in the bourgeois press have not stopped.
To the contrary, the IU-controlled city governments are being pushed into conflict with the municipal workers, with the public workers organized in the Confederacion Intersindical de Trabajadores Estatales (CIT) who are on strike, and with the masses of shantytown dwellers who mobilized against the failure to install basic services such as water and electricity.
Barrantes has been forced in practice to come out against the rising wave of strikes and against the PCP (SL). The people's response to the crisis was a legitimate one. The wage raise was achieved after a twenty-day-long heroic struggle. The APRA was promoted by the press. The party leader, Garcia, sang the praises of the mobilizations. And a lot of APRA cadres tried to take the leadership in the movement. Barrantes was forced by the masses to take the lead of the neighborhood mobilizations. But at the same time, he was telling the press that "the present struggles are endangering the elections and they are being motivated by SL infiltrators." This was a very big error, since most of the union and neighborhood organizations are led by members and sympathizers of the IU. Such statements had a grave impact on the rank and file.
The waning of the IU's political influence that the bourgeoisie talks about can be measured by a loss of confidence by middle strata. This is the result of grave political errors made by the reformist wing. It is by no means the consequence of any lack of determination on the part of the working masses organized in the front.
The election campaign itself was punctuated by public conflicts. On the one hand, there was the censuring of Dr. Ledesma, a member of the Executive Committee of the front; limiting of demonstrations; and the arrogance and massive sympathy demonstrated by the working people at every public presentation of the "Presidentia Platform."
The PCP (SL) and the MRTA have not been militarily defeated. The first called for an "active boycott of the elections" from January on. And second called for "spoiled ballots." But no one doubted that the virtual military occupation of the country for the 48 hours preceeding the elections was going to put a very strong damper on any possibility for "terrorist adventures."
What was notable, however, WAS the absence of offensive terrorist actions, which everyone expected in he weeks before the elections. It is evident that both revolutionary organizations have taken coinciding courses of tactical retreat with respect to carrying out armed actions now, while remaining firm in their strategy of prolonged war.
While we condemn the foot dragging of the reformists and opportunists in the IU, no less deplorable is the total lack of any objective analysis of the political positions of the PCP (SL) and the MRTA. These organizations have been forced into a retreat mainly because the masses have rejected methods that are isolated from their activity, their traditions, their experience, their gains, and their aspiration for unity in struggle.
Both the reformists and the ultraleftists, each in their own way, are offering a respite to a divided bourgeoisie, which is finding in the APRA a way to rebuild its unity. Both of the guerrilla organizations will be obliged not only to make a tactical retreat but to offer an explanation to the masses and to their own self-sacrificing militants for the vast gap that exists between their political conceptions and the present level of consciousness and organization of the masses. What the new government faces
The government that takes office on July 28 will have to face the worst crisis in the history of the country:
1) Inflation, estimated at 200% in 1985, is setting new records. 61.3% Unemphy economic unitie Unemployment running population.
3) The foreign debt has gone over 13 billion dollars, and payment of service and interest charges is several months in arrears.
4) There is a virtual civil war in 18 provinces, encompassing five of the 25 departments of Peru (Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurimac, Pasco, and Huanuco). These areas have been put under "emergency" rule by the armed forces, which have been given free rein to "disappear" people, to torture, rape,
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The Peruvian army in action (DR) and carry out summary executions.
5) The sell-out of our copper and oil to US imperialism (to Southern in the first case and OXY in the second). Both of these companies have gotten tax write-offs of 600 million dollars a year.
6) A minimum wage equalling 35 dollars a month, a high rate of infant mortality, an unprecedented recession (the GNP fell by 13% in 1983), and rapid depreciation of the Peruvian currency, with the exchange rate for the dollar reaching 8,500 soles in March.
In the face of this situation, the well bankrolled demagogic electoral campaign run by Alan Garcia, which is estimated to have cost about 20 billion soles, has offered no precise answers. His most respected technical adviser, the economist and present deputy Luis Alva Castro, candidate for the post of second vice president and probable minister of the economy under the new government, has proposed the following measures for the first hundred days of the APRA government:
1) To reduce inflation in the first months to an annual average of 60%.
2) To renegotiate the foreign debt over a long term and get new financing.
3) To revise the oil contracts, eliminating the tax write-offs for foreign companies.
4) A program for cleaning up public finances.
5) A program for national pacification through full and unrestricted respect for human rights and democratic freedoms.
6) Launching a program of regional autonomy and decentralization to be carried out over the five year period 1985-1990.
7) A social emergency program, giving priority to the development of health services, education, and housing.
8) Economic reconstruction through 8 planned state intervention in the economy in order to overcome the imbalances in local and international economic operations.
The APRA is obliged to tie the working class, which is identified with the revolutionary left, to a bourgeois reformist program that depends to a very large degree on international finance capital, mainly US and to a lesser extent West European. It will have to make an accounting to the IMF, and at the same time convince the masses to accept another five years of sacrifices.
The APRA's political deal with the SODE (Solidarity and Democracy) of the economies minister in the military dictatorship of Morales Bermudez, Javier Silva Ruete, who first hitched our national economy to the IMF's purse strings, is not going to be very helpful in the present stage of the class struggle. The room for bourgeois-democratic maneuver has been reduced to a minimum, and even that is being threatened by the militarization of the country, which Garcia and the APRA are willing not only to tolerate but to deepen. The APRA's political link with the international Social Democracy is not going to mean very much, after the experience the Bolivian people have gone through under the government of Siles Suazo.
Far from attenuating, the class contradictions are deepening. On top of the militarization, we will have fascist-like activity by a party apparatus that since 1940, including in the period of the Constituent Assembly and more recently in the case of the murder of an IU activist, has made no bones about using terror to impose its policy.
The victory of the APRA will serve to sharpen the mass struggles. The present rise of struggles can be stemmed only by a violent defeat of the workers organizations or by a split in the IU, with its reformist sector going over to open class collaboration.
It is an essential task to maintain the united front and defend it against divisive adventures out of line with the experience of the workers and the evolution of their consciousness, to bring about a revolutionary convergence within the IU. The debate between reformists and revolutionists can take a dangerous turn if we fall for the provocations of the bourgeoisie and the dogmatic sectors.
However, dangers can also arise from attempts to cover up or play down political conflicts by means of maneuvers. It is necessary to defend the fullest democracy in the front and unity of action of all the organizations that make it up, as well as to press for the admission of all the revolutionary forces that have applied for membership.
It is necessary to mobilize alongside the exploited and oppressed masses for the achievement of the people's urgent demands. The latest bourgeois reformist regime has to be forced to make clear where it stands. This is the way to wear away the expectations and illusions that the middle strata and backward sections of the proletariat are placing in the new regime.
The initiative in economic, political, or national demands cannot be left to the petty bourgeoisie or to the bourgeoisie. It is necessary to give impetus to a correct policy of revolutionary democratic alliances without mortgaging the political independence of the proletariat. We have to use our parliamentary victories in mass mobilizations. A fight has to be waged for a moratorium on payment of the foreign debt and for independence from the IMF.
The movement has to take the leadership in the fight to defend our national sovereignty for nationalizing the copper and oil industries. It has to demand the lifting of the state of emergency in the 18 provinces of the south-central highlands, the release of the political prisoners, and the bringing to justice of those responsible for the outrages committed.
The crisis in which our country finds itself, the servile subservience to imperialism of every successive government make it vital to accomplish these tasks. They are all the more urgent because the fight for them goes hand in hand with struggling for the economic demands of the workers for decent wages, or job security, and for a sliding scale of wages and hours.
The bourgeoisie's demogogic line of giving priority to the peasants makes it essential for the proletariat to adopt a policy of alliance and joint mobilization with the poor in the countryside. It is absolutely clear that the fight for the unity of the IU and for reinforcing and extending the front's local committees throughout the country has to go hand in hand with building a revolutionary leadership within the front itself. On the accomplishment of these tasks will depend the fate of our country and of millions of exploited and oppressed.
International Viewpoint 20 May 1985
NICARAGUA-