of the Caetano dictatorship in Portugal on 25 April will be marked by the holding of elections to the Legislative Assembly In the voting last year, the parties claiming adherence to socialism - the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the revolutionary left - won more than 60 per cent of the vote. This April it appears likely that the parties of the ruling class - the liberals of the PPD (Popular Democratic Party) and the conservative CDS (Democratic and Social Centre) - will win an absolute majority of the votes cast. Hence for the first time the ruling class will be able to form a government which with the 'mandate' of the elections can implement its authoritarian proposals.
The ruling class has won this greater room for manoeuvre primarily as a result of the defeat suffered by the left on 26 November.
On the other hand the working class has not let up in its struggle. There have been a number of exemplary strikes and occupations - for example at Timex, Molaflex and Firestone. In the last few weeks a wave of strikes has swept the coun LIY The workers commissions still exist and continue to function, while the first stirrings of opposition are again being seen within the armed forces. For the working class the elections are important not in themselves, but because they allow the workers and peasants to prepare for the crucial class confrontations that will inevitably. follow.
Farce In fact the elections are a farce. Two months later, in June, another vote will take place for the post of President. In a pact agreed between the Revolutionary Council of the Armed Forces Movement and the major political parties (including the Socialist Party and the Communist Party) tremendous power has been assigned to the President, who is certain to be a strong military figure. The likely candidates are the current President, Costa Gomes, the Prime Minister, Azevedo, or a right-wing general like Eanes or Galvao de Melo.
The pact, signed finally on 26 February gives the President the right to veto laws passed by the Assembly unless they are supported by a two-thirds majority of the deputies. The President, to be elected by universal suffrage every five ter. The Revolutionary Council will continue to exist, but only in an advisory capacity SP and CP knows no bounds. During the recent strikes they have told the workers to go back so as to avoid disturbances that might upset their chances in the elections! This is the first time since the first and second Spinola governments that the CP has resorted to open strikebreaking.
the elections. Apart from the SP that it is consistent However the capitulation of the Fourteen parties are standing in unist manner.' suluencies. monarchist PPM, and the Christian Democrats (PDC), who were banned from last year's elections after the attempted Spinola coup onl Among the many so-called revolutionary organisations standing there are three Maoist groups, whose main aim is to unmask 'social fascism' in the guise of the CP; three centrist groups including the large UDP (Popular Democratic Union), which tions. also has leanings towards Maoism, but doesn't make social fascism the basis of its politics; and both the LCI (International Communist League, sympathising section of the Fourth International) and the PRT (Revolutionary Workers Party, which also supports the FI).
An absentee from this list is the PRP (Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat), which is supported by the International Socialists in this country. One must say of the PRP consistently ultra-left. Last year the PRP stated in their manifesto: 'No to bourgeois elections. This year they have simply repeated the message.
The PRT, arguing that the SP is the 'hegemonic force' within the working class, supported the call for a SP government based on the worker deputies and the mobilisation of the masses'. The LCI correctly argue that while the SP has the support of a majority of the working class, it does so basically via its electoral influence, and not through industrial cells and trade union fracSlogan The governmental slogan of the LCI in the election period is therefore for 'the SP and CP to accept their responsibilities and form a gov. ernment, without representatives of the bourgeoisie, breaking with the pact and applying a workers plan of struggle". Such a plan would be worked out by a national congress of trade unions and workers commissions. In other words, the LCI is demanding that the SP and CP follow the wishes of the workers and peasants and form a government - but a government based on the organisations of the working class, and not those of the bourgeois state.
The other central points on