Elections threaten Francoist bastions

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On April 3, only a month after the general election, Spain will again go to the polls-this time in the first municipal elections since 1933.

It was another April day, two years before the last municipal elections, which ushered in eight years of revolutionary struggle in Spain.

On April 12 1931, the decisive victory of the Socialist and Republican candidates in the municipal elections, which marked the end of seven years of dictatorship' in Spain, led to massive popular demonstrations and within two days to the flight into permanent exile of the King, Alfonso XIII.

Precedent

It is almost certain that on April 5 1979 Franco's protege King Juan Carlos will still be sitting in the royal palace and his friend Adolfo Suarez will still be in the Moncloa Palace (seat of the Spanish government).

But the precedent of 1931 has been a persistent nightmare for the "reforming" Francoists of the Spanish government as well as the reformists and Stalinists.

To the masses of Spanish workers and peasants it is the municipal administrations (the Ayuntamientos) which, along with the armed police and Civil Guard have more than anything represented the real presence of Franco's inhuman dictatorship.

Up to today these municipal: ities and their official powers remain intact. That has been an integral part of the strategy of the present "reforming" government.

The municipal elections have been deliberately held back until after two general parliamentary elections and the approval by referendum of a new undemocratic constitution.

Expectations

The •regime knew that municipal elections today. because of the large workers' majority in the major cities, would still be capable of vastly raising the expectations of workers in their own leaders.

Although the reformist and Stalinist leaders have made numerous formal complaints at the delay in the municipal elections, they have in practice shown themselves quite ready to go along with Suarez' plans to politically anaesthetise the working class. • Nonetheless, the prospect of the weakening of the bastion of Francoism, which the municipalities represent, is still a threatening prospect for the Spanish bourgeoisie.

Avoid majorities

And it will be much harder for the main workers' parties to avoid getting majorities on councils and mayoral elections than it was for them to avoid winning the general elections of March 1.

For this reason the class is today busy working out all kinds of electoral irregularities (known in Spain as casiquismo-undue influence-and pucherazo-ballot rigging) which are certain to be much more widespread than in the general Also a good deal of evidence is coming to light in the press of the existing Franco-appointed councils using up their last few days of life by diverting municipal funds, passing reactionary regulations which will be difficult for the new councils to undo and appointing Francoists to powerful full-time municipal jobs.

All of Spain's 8,000 municipal councils will be elected on April 3. This means nearly 70,000 councillors for which there will be over 200,000 candidates.

The electoral system is a limited form of proportional representation which nonetheless severely discriminates against the smaller minority parties.

Under the electoral law mayors will be elected by the elected councillors.

In the main municipalities electors will face 10 or more Suarez, with separate lists of candidates.

Adolfo Suarez government party, the UCD (Democratic Centre Union) will be putting up candidates in about 7,000 of the 8,000 municipalities, the PSOE (Socialist Party) in about 3,000 and the CP in about 1600.

Both the PSOE and the CP. however, have candidates in all towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants.

In many of the smaller towns in rural areas there will be only one list, either of "independents" (who will in most cases be loyal Francoists) or of the hard-line Francoist Democratic Coalition (from friends, on the campaign trail Bụt the Combate editoriàl makes the call for a PSOECP vote conditional on those two parties ending their political rivalries.

The LCR apparently remains unaware of the use of the established Leninist tactics of voting for the workers" parties in order to force them into a situation where they must expose themselves.

The confusion of the LCR's campaign is now compounded, however, by their presentation of joint lists with other parties in particular in Euskadi (the Basque provinces) with the "left" nationalist candidates of the two parties linked to the different wings of ETA (Euskadiko Eskerra and Herri Batasuna).

In some circumstances it can certainly be correot to call for critical support to such candidatures.

But the LCR's involvement with them in a joint list and limited joint programme necessarily blunts the impact of the clear revolutionary propaganda which it is the duty of any authentic revolutionary party to put forward in a bourgeois election campaign, whatever might be the voting tactics it advocates.

It is in Euskadi that, as in the Constitutional referendum of last December and the general elections earlier this month, the enmity between the masses and the UCD government is already showing itself most sharply.

The UCD after its electoral setback in the region on March 1, has been able to put up candidates in only 5% of the municipalities in Biscay province (one of the four Basque provinces).

candidate And in the most militantly nationalist of the Basque provinces, Guipuzcoa, the UCD has been unable to produce a single candidate!.

This is already a warning that the government can expect that after these elections the question of self-determination for Euskadi (and . the other nationalities of Spain) is likely to become even more explosive..

Also, after these élections, workers' parties for the time for 40 years will in some towns and cities be forced to take on responsibility for administration.

Despite all the electoral fraud and all the efforts of the Francoists, reformists and Stalinists to minimise the national political importance of these elections, that will be a significant development in the struggle to expose and remove the present working class leadership which is betraying Spanish workers to a new, apparentiy more "democratic" variety of Francoism.