[defeats Despite a personal intervention in the election…]

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defeats Despite a personal intervention in the election campaign by Mrs Gandhi, in support of her CongressIndira Party, the "Left Front" in Kerala state won a decisive victory, taking 95 out of 140 seats, against only 17 to Gandhi.

According to Communist Party General Secretary Rajeshwar Rao "This victory proves that the so-called Indira wave does not work where the left is strong and united and allied with democratic forces."

But the alliance with «democratic forces" made by the two Stalinist parties the CP(L) and the CP(M) was in reality an alliance with bourgeois parties, including the Moslem League.

These are the same type of "democratic forces" that led Communist Parties to throw aside even the pretence of a socialist programme in forming Popular Fronts that led to catastrophic defeats for the working class in Spain in the 1930s and Chile in 1973.

While the two CPs, locked in their alliance with bourgeois parties, offer Indian workers no political alternative, the rampant opportunism of Indian bourgeois politicians has been demonstrated once again by the pell-mell rush to support the victorious Mrs Gandhi.

In Haryana state the Chief Minister. along with members of the legislative assembly, have broken from the defeated Janata coalition and gone over wholesale to Gandhigiving her a majonty in the state!

ICELANDIC Stalinist Svavar Gestsson has failed to form a coalition including his People's Alliance party. The unenviable task of trying to knock together a workable government now falls on Benedikt Grondal, the present caretaker prime minister in the Social Democrat cabinet. Salisbury to hear. Mugabe

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ICELAND STALEMATE