"Portugal Election: Bosses Confilent' (16 June) ....... The Stalinists' strategy is to try to win enough votes to be able to strike a bargain with Eane.........
A serious obstacle to the CP's manoeuvre is the candidacy of populist Maj. Otelo de Carvalho, who ..... has attracted a large following of militants .... Carvalho's programme includes progressive slogans such as nationalisation of industry and collectivisation of land, but is full of confusion and inconsistencies.
He stresses the need for independence from international capital", instead of calling for the mobilisation of workers against capitalism of whatever stripe. And as if that were not enough, he has pledged himself to appoint Soares as Prime Minister it ne is elected.
None of the candidates provides any answer to the central question or an independent working crass leadership Dasea on the organs of workers' power. The demand must be for the Socialist Party and Communist Party, which together commanded a majority in the parliamentary elections, to break from the Armed Forces Movement and form a workers' government based on the workers committees. The election of General Ramalho Eanes as President of Portugal came as no surprise to anybody. But if it was a foregone conclusion as a result of his endorsement by the Socialist Party as well as the bourgeois Centre Democrats (CDS) and Popular Democrats (PPD), the alection still held some surprises when the final figures for all the candidates were known.
Most notable of all was the fact that Major Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, the candidate supported by the centrists of the UDP, MES, PRP and FSP, crossed the finishing line in second place with almost 800,000 votes - more than twice as many as the Communist Party's candidate, Octavio Pato. Moreover, it was in the traditional areas of CP influence - Setubal, Beja, Evora, and to a lesser extent Faro - that Otelo got the greatest support. How is this to be explained?
The Communist Party's candidature and campaign was based on the very hollow theme of a left-wing majority government, a complete refusal to campaign against Eanes, what now?
DAVE WIMHURST reporting from OPORTO desire of the workers and peasants for the building of the 'mass movement at the base'. And all this without ever precisely explaining how such steps could be taken. Thus the votes for this candidate expressed a general feeling rather than support for a clearly worked out strategy.
The combined vote of Pato and Otelo came to more than 24 per cent, and in spite of the bankruptcy of Pato and the illusions of Otelo, it was an anti-capitalist vote. What, then, are the prospects that face the workers and peasants who voted for these candidates, and for all the Portuguese masses, following the election of Eanes? control, closing down some of the state-controlled factories, and generally creating conditions for the restabilisation of the capitalist economy.
But none of these measures can be undertaken either easily or peacefully. With a Socialist Party government leading the attack on the workers, and with the majority of the trade unions controlled by a party. the CP, which is excluded from any future government, the recipe is one of a general upsurge in the coming months. The left wing of the SP consists mostly of trade union militants, and it is precisely the trade unions that will be launching new struggles around the collective bargaining agreements in the coming months.
In this situation the CP is most likely to put on a left face, both as a result of pressure from the workers in the trade unions and in order to win over those left SP militants who will become rapidly disillusioned with 'their government as they come up against its attacks.