Election boycott in the Spanish State
Today there are elections in 8,112 cities and towns in the Spanish State and in 12 of its 17 autonomous regions. Additionally there will be held parliamentary elections in December. We have previously written on the elections in the Spanish State and the call by the newspaper Servir al Pueblo (Serve the People) to boycott it. There has now been reported several actions for this campaign.
The 30th of April it was reported that there had been organized a People’s School on election boycott in the City of Elche. A Spanish translation of document “The strategic importance of the electoral boycott”, that was originally published in German in the theoretical magazine Klassenstandpunkt, was studied. The participants made comparisons between revisionists in Germany and in the Spanish State on this question, and they discussed the role of the electoral boycott in the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Spain.
Graffiti actions have been reported in the cities of Albacete, Elche, Madrid, and Valencia, with slogans like “Elections No, People’s War Yes”, “Down with the electoral circus” and “Don’t vote, It is right to rebel!”. Posters promoting candidates for the elections were defaced with words like “Enemy”, “Exploiter”, and “Bourgeois”.
The 9th of May an article was published, denouncing revisionism and all kinds of opportunists who defend the participation in the elections. Some of these directly participate in the elections and some call for voting on the “least bad” option.
The article states that participation in the elections is to: “1) Legitimize the imperialist bourgeois State… 2) Deceive the masses with false promises… 3) Move the masses away from the revolution… 4) Condemn the Communist Parties to the swamp of parliamentarism, revisionism and the eternal peaceful accumulation of forces”.
Against the argument of using the elections to make propaganda the article answers: “Yes, but in the form of an electoral boycott! Not by legitimizing the next bourgeois leader or creating parliamentary hopes and illusions among the masses”.
Regarding the argument of voting for the “least evil” to “stop fascism”, the article explains that the tendency towards fascism in the crisis of imperialism, in its last phase of decomposition is not dependent on the result of the election. It is also highlighted that the current Social Democratic government of the Spanish State is governing against the people and for the imperialists. Last year was a year of extraordinary profits for Spanish imperialism, with the highest growth from the exploitation of oppressed countries like Mexico. The article states that the current government has “not hesitated to repress the masses with blood and fire, be it in Madrid, Barcelona, Cádiz or Melilla”, and that “voting for the least bad was never an option.”
Another aspect that is highlighted is that the majority of the deepest and broadest masses do not vote. Abstention is high in the workers neighborhoods, and in the elections of the Spanish State, those who do not vote would make up the largest party.
