Englisches Statement der KKE zur Europawahl: Statement of the CC on the results of the elections of the 18th and 25th of May 2014
1. The CC salutes the thousands of party members, friends of the party and KNE, people who cooperate with the KKE, the voters who fought in this battle, joined forces with the party and contributed to the strengthening of the KKE. The party fought in a unified way throughout the country, with the list of the KKE in the EU elections on 25th May, with the lists of the “People’s Rally” in the municipal and regional elections both in the first round on 18th May as well in the second round on 25th May.
In the EU parliamentary elections the KKE increased its percentage (6,1%) and votes (347.817) in relation to its percentage (4,5%) and votes (227.227) in June 2012, electing two MEPs.
In addition, it won the elections in the municipalities of Patras, Haidari, Petroupolis and Ikaria. It had an increase in the country’s 13 regions, receiving 8.8% and 498,573 votes. It increased its votes in 214 municipalities. In 50 municipalities its percentage exceeded 10%.
The percentage of the KKE in the EU parliamentary elections and in the regional- municipal elections reflects a trend for the rallying of forces around the KKE and the influence of its positions on new voters. It also demonstrates, to a certain extent, the acceptance of the fundamental position of the KKE against the EU, the monopolies and the governments that support the “EU one way-street”. On this basis it is necessary for the party, from the CC to each Party Base Organisation, to tighten its relations with all the working people who took this step, came to the side of the KKE and supported it in the elections.
The party organizations will discuss with the friends and the people who cooperated with the party about the conclusions and the significant experience drawn from the battle as well as about the goals and ways to organize the struggle and rally the people for a pro-people way out of the crisis.
2. The election result demonstrates the people’s anger towards ND and PASOK which undertook the burden of implementing the anti-people governmental policies and the “EU one way- street”.
The election result as a whole does not demonstrate any reversal of the anti-people balance of forces; it does not constitute any “new political scene” in favour of the people.
Although a significant section of the voters of SYRIZA made this choice with the expectation of a left orientation, the first position of SYRIZA does not express any strengthening of the left, radical, antimonopoly, anti-imperialist political line.
The election result, where SYRIZA took the first place, more ro less maintaining its percentage from June 2012, was formed under the pressure for an immediate change in government that would allegedly halt the current anti-people political line. Nevertheless the political line of SYRIZA for the management of the system does not constitute any true opposition to the government’s anti-people policies. SYRIZA is neither willing nor capable of providing a pro-people solution. It is not on the people’s side.
The results –above all in the EU parliamentary elections- indicate the consolidation of the tendency to substitute the visibly weakened PASOK by SYRIZA, as part of the reshuffling of the political scene that started in June 2012. At the same time, the course of other social democratic formations appears to be volatile e.g. the “OLIVE TREE” which was the main electoral formation of PASOK. The “OLIVE TREE” rallied some forces but received a smaller percentage than in June 2012. Furthermore, the percentage of the Democratic Left was reduced in favour of the new formation “THE RIVER” that appeared with unclear and blurred slogans.
Although the tendency of the KKE to rally forces and receive new votes is positive, the election results as a whole do not express any significant tendency towards the emancipation of the workers’ and people’s forces from the parties of the “EU one way- street”, the interests of capital and the monopolies.
The most extreme expression of this discrepancy is the high percentage of Golden Dawn. Generally there is a retreat as regards the people’s consciousness, a strengthening of conservatism.
The ruling class and the system still possess significant reserves that allow it to appear with different mantles. This assessment is based on the votes and programmes both of SYRIZA, as well as of the “OLIVE TREE” and the “RIVER”. As a whole, the recomposition of the political system is underway, the creation of new barriers to radicalization, something that we must specifically monitor in the next period.
3. The line of counterattack and rupture against the capitalist path of development, the EU and the policies that support this path via assimilation and passivity must be further strengthened within the working class, the youth and the movement. Irrespective of the political developments and the correlation of forces among the parties that support the EU and the bourgeois management, the day after the elections the people will have to face the EU permanent memoranda and the policies that serve the competitiveness and the recovery of capital. These policies lead to the even greater bankruptcy of the people and cannot solve the acute popular problems such as the problem of unemployment.
This path is served both by government and SYRIZA as well as by the other parties. It is an anti-people and barbaric path of development which, despite their efforts, cannot be prettified. Thus, the governmental parties are making false promises that investments and capitalist recovery will allegedly relieve the people, while SYRIZA fosters the illusion that it will change the EU.
4. The Nazi Golden Dawn maintains a high percentage of the vote. In the recent period, alongside the other factors that reinforced Golden Dawn and which the KKE has repeatedly highlighted, we must also add the stance of the other political forces towards the voters of Golden Dawn, which treat them as electoral clientele. Isolating Golden Dawn so that it loses votes from the popular strata is something completely different from the opportunistic and dangerous tactic of the other parties that foster the rationale of its toleration and exculpation in order to fish for votes. The KKE is committed to undertaking more initiatives in the movement, in the workplaces, in the popular neighbourhoods, amongst the youth, in order to expose the fact that Golden Dawn is supported by mechanisms of the system, by sections of capital, by the political line of the EU.
5. The overall electoral results in the rest of the EU countries are negative for the peoples. They highlight the need for the regroupment of the communist movement and the strengthening of the CPs and the mass popular movements in a direction of rupture and overthrow of the power of capital and the monopolies. The tangible popular opposition to the EU, to its political line and institutions, which was also expressed by the mass abstention from the EU parliamentary elections in many member-states as a result of the many years of experience of the peoples regarding the EU, instead of acquiring an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist orientation is trapped in conservative, reactionary parties, in nationalist and racist forces, fascist organizations, of so-called “euro-skepticism”, which serve the aims of various sections of capital. These sections of capital seek the reformation of the Eurozone and EU, even via the withdrawal of countries from it, in order to serve their particular interests, to strengthen their competitiveness. These parties do not dispute the anti-people political line, the intensification of capitalist exploitation, the accession to some form of imperialist alliance. Consequently, they are not a solution for the peoples of Europe.
The parties that are rallied in the “European Left Party”, to which SYRIZA belongs, as well as communist parties that have abandoned the struggle against the EU and for the overthrow of the power of capital, also bear responsibilities for this situation. These parties, with the political line of prettifying the EU, their compromised stance in the movement, through their participation in anti-people governments in previous years, damaged the labour-people’s movement in their countries, led it to defeat, leaving the workers in these countries exposed to the populism of reactionary and fascist parties.
6. The atmosphere of the confrontation is being cultivated and focused, in the period immediately after the elections, on attempts to trap the people in the question regarding “which government will have the greatest negotiating capability” inside the walls of the EU and the capitalist development path. The people must not be trapped into waiting and choosing the allegedly lesser evil, which will consolidate today’s anti-people correlation of forces.
The KKE will strengthen its efforts and initiatives regarding the sharpening problems of the people, as it also did in the previous period with its proposals concerning the relief of the unemployed, the popular households etc. It will strengthen the efforts for the regroupment of the labour-people’s movement, the construction of the People’s Alliance, in order to strengthen the anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction of the struggle and the rallying of forces.
It will struggle, utilizing its elected MEPS, mayors, municipal and regional councilors, in order to expose the anti-people plans that are being concocted both in the EU parliament as well as in the regional and municipal councils. It will fight against all the anti-people measures of the EU, the governments and the local and regional bodies that support it.
It will make every effort so that solidarity and the common struggle of the peoples against the wars unleashed by the EU, NATO and the USA at their expense gain ground, especially today when dangerous developments are being witnessed in the entire region, from Thrace and Cyprus to Syria and Ukraine. It will make every effort so that the struggle for socialism is strengthened, which will liberate the workers and peoples from exploitation and oppression.
The KKE is the only party that provides the perspective of the country and people being freed from the shackles of the predatory alliance and all the debt, by overthrowing the owners of the accumulated wealth. A people sovereign and capable of appointing their own government, of workers’-people’s power, means a people capable of taking the wealth it creates into its hands, transforming it into the people’s property for its own prosperity. Then central planning of the economy in favour of the people will become a reality and the relations with peoples and countries will develop with their mutual interests as the criterion
26 May 2014
THE CC OF THE KKE