Can elections save Banzer?

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Armed workers on the streets of Bolivia in 1971 Two weeks s ago the military regime in Peru staged elections to a so-called constitutional assembly.

During July two other South American military dictatorships will be permitting Presidential elections (July 9 in Bolivia and July 16 in Ecuador).

The Brazilian regime (in power since 1964) claimed this week to have abolished press censorship and will also shortly be holding presidential Even the Argentinian, dictators are talking more and more in public of some form of "return to constitutional rule"

Elections are never to be confused with democracy. And that could not be more true of Latin America at the present time.

The constitutions which all these elections are taking place are profoundly undemocratic.

And the elections themselves are commonly characterised by fraud, trickery and intimidation by the rulers.

They are using elections to give a semblance of legitimacy to their own rule and it helps them to fit in with the rhetoric of Carter's imperialist "human rights" policy.

But that is only one side of a complex process which is taking place almost throughout Latin America.

The other side is that the elections are one sign that the military dictatorships are losing their political grip and becoming increasingly powerless to deal with the upsurge of the mass movement.

Except for Pinochet, the Latin American dictators came to power for the most part without inflicting any decisive historic defeat on the organised working class movements of these countries.

They have held down these movements through a combination of repression and where possible, making alliances with the most unprincipled sections of the working class leadership le.g. the Communist Party in Peru).

But their power has lacked any social base.

In general the dictators have failed to assimilate the traditional bourgeois parties and equally failed to create their own.

This has created a crucial lack of bourgeois power at the political level which shows up whenever any rise of workers' struggle takes place.

On more and more occasions in the last 12 months, sheer repression has been shown to be Dockworkers demonstrate inadequate to preserving stable capitalist rule.

All the regimes, therefore, in Brest ances and employ mainly women. (the Socialist Party-led CFDT has been putting forward the slogan "Moulinex liberates the woman, but exploits its workers") are being forced towards (they hope) some very limited "democratic opening" through which Giscard d'Estaing regrading, retraining and job security with increased leave to visit their families abroad -finally developed to centre on a massive wage claim which, like that at Moulinex dwarfs the government's proposals.

Throughout the dispute at Renault, the trade union bureaucrats have retreated into hiding.

Despite the action taken by 70,000 Renault workers, who stopped work protest at the first attacks on the occupations, the leaders of the CGT and the CFDT resolutely refused to call any wider strike.

Determination

In the present mass upheaval, French workers have declared in action their determination to resist the violent demands of the capitalist class.

But in the same process they have once again confronted the treacherous leadership of the labour bureaucracy The cynicism of these socialists' and 'comnunists' was clearly expressed by Richter, the leader of the CFDT in the Flins plant of Renault. Having contributed to the defeat of the occupation, he dared to sum up the action as a 'suicidal strike'.

Such 'leaders' will always stand by to watch the working-class bleed itself to death in misdirected battles.

The central lesson that needs to be gained from this experience is an understanding of how the daily struggles of the working class and the fight against Richter and his associates are a vital part of the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system, and create the dictatorship of the proletariat which alone can give birth to socialism. bourgeois : rule be strengthened.

But the process is one which in Latin America's political conditions is extremely difficult for the dictators to control.

The years of repression have led to the seeking of increasingly radical solutions by the oppressed masses-illustrated in different ways by the mass abstentions in Colombian elections and the gains by the far left in those in Peru.

Bolivia's presidential election, due on July 9 is dictator Banzer's last ditch attempt to maintain his power after the threat to destroy it implicit in the wave of strikes and occupations in the tin mines and in the universities and schools which began last year.

Not standing Banzer has not even dared put himself forward as candidate.

Instead he is aiming to remain in charge of the armed forces and is supporting General Juan Pereda Asbun for the Presidency.

Pereda Asbun as the official government candidate is expected to win'-after all the government 'counts' the vote.

But his 'victory' (which under the 1966 constitution will also give him automatically 80% of the seats in the national assembly) will be generally regarded as a formality rather than a political triumph.

Battles

Because the real political battles are taking place among the opposition candidates-the battles over who represents the bourgeoisie and imperialism and over who will lead the working class.

And these battles have drawn in many of Bolivia's leading political figures who have been lying low or in exile for the 7 years since Banza overthrew General Torres and dispersed the Popular Assembly in the pre-revolutionary crisis of 1971.

At the last count, two expresidents were standing for the presidency-Victor Paz Estenssoro and Hernan Siles Suazo.

Petty bourgeois

Both of them are leaders of the main petty bourgeois nationalist party the MNR (National Revolutionary Movement) which took power after the revolution of 1952 and held it until the military coup by General Barrientos in 1964.

Siles Suazo has the support of the 'left' section of the MNR, of the Bolivian Communist Party (pro-Moscow) and of the MIR (Left Revolutionary Movement) a reformist group allied to the 'Socialist International' especially through its links with the Spanish PSOE.

Paz Estenssoro has tried to do a deal with Siles Suazo as well as with the Christian Democratic candidate, General Rene Bernal Escalante. But he is also reputedly ready to do a deal with Banzer and Pereda Asbun if that will get him back a bit of his lost power.

Not for nothing is Paz Estenssoro known as a supreme opportunist in a country where the competition is very strong.

Heterogeneous

There will also be at least one working class candidate standing in the name of the Left Revolutionary Front (FRI).

This is politically hetero. geneous alliance including left reformist union leader Juan Lechin's National Left Revolutionary Party (PRIN), a and a group . 00 miners leader Filomon Escobar which claims to be Trotskyist.

This may not be the only left-wing candidacy since there is a possibility that Lechin may stand independently

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