The new coalition government begins from a worse starting point than before. On the opposite side the workers’ resistance can count on the support of a stronger left opposition. The possibilities to stem the tide of attacks on the working class stand before us stronger than they were till now.
Syriza lost about 300,000 voters, at least half of whom moved leftwards. A large part chose to abstain, such as unemployed and poor voters, who were asked to travel for the third time within a year.
The crisis inside the party of Syriza did not end with the departure of Popular Unity. Also the party’s rank and file who come from the working class voted for it because of the blackmailing threat that the Tories (New Democracy) would return to power, and they did it with less illusions about Syriza’s programme. Alexis Tsipras campaigned using two arguments: the promise that the compromise with the memorandums is going to be temporary and that he remains the main opponent of those who forced him to settle.
The ideological bankruptcy of the European Union is becoming visible to all. None of the centre and “centre-left” parties have emerged as a strong pole.
Popular Unity won 150,000 votes. Together with the Communist Party, Antarsya and other extra-parliamentary left organisations that is 9.46 percent.
It is an impressive figure in a situation where Syriza is in government. There is no other country in a similar situation.
There is a real potential to transform each workplace that will be hit by the new memorandum attacks into a fortress of resistance.
The same applies to the battles against the fascists in order to defend refugees and immigrants.
Antarsya, the anti-capitalist left, comes out of the electoral battle as a force that can clearly contribute to the development of workers’ resistance at all levels.
The question of how we move beyond the limits of a government administration that stumbles upon the blackmails of the ruling classes and their mechanisms, national and supranational, becomes tangible and it concerns thousands of fighters of the working class and the left. The answers of the anti-capitalist strategy are valuable and strengthening Antarsya is necessary.
SEK will contribute to such a course so as to make the next period of working class resistance a victorious one.
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