The day after the triple vote, Belgium woke up to a new rise of the right and the far right, while the latter continued its advance in several European countries. Our Anti-capitalist list in the European elections _received more than 50,000 votes, a glimmer of hope in a gloomy panorama. It is time for struggle and for unity of our social camp.
If the results of the Flemish far right are not as high as expected, Flanders is nevertheless facing a new progression of Vlaams Belang, the worst enemy of social movements, women, LGBT people, racialized people, and of the working class in general. These results are also the result of the normalization of its ideas, through other parties, notably the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) and the Reformist Movement (MR) but also others like Vooruit (Forward) and its campaign dripping with racism which aimed to prepare a coalition with the N-VA.
In Wallonia and Brussels, it is a real slap in the face for the government left, for the Socialist Party and especially for Ecolo, sanctioned for its policy of compromise. The PTB-PVDA (Workers’ Party of Belgium - radical left) is progressing in Brussels and Flanders but shows a slight decline in Wallonia. This demonstrates both an aspiration for another policy, but at the same time highlights the limits of a logic of self-construction based on an electoral strategy, which leads to the adoption of very minimalist lines of rupture.
All this portends very right-wing governments, with the N-VA in Flanders and at the federal level and with the MR and Les Engagés who now play a central role on the French-speaking side, with more than likely a two-party coalition in Wallonia.
These electoral results come in a context where capitalists are increasingly choosing the most reactionary policies in an attempt to overcome their crisis and their own inability to govern. This is what we are witnessing with the rise of the far right elsewhere in Europe, and this is what is concretely happening before our eyes with Macron’s choice to accept the far right’s demand to dissolve the National Assembly, even though the National Rally (RN) obtained more than 30%per cent in the European election in France. Faced with this, the Anti-capitalist Left expresses its most total solidarity with the French comrades who will have to lead a battle whose stakes are crucial, not only for them , but also for the European balance of power , or even beyond.
50,758 anti-capitalist votes
In this gloomy panorama, the results of the Anti-capitalist list in the European elections are unexpected. With almost 2 per cent of the votes (1.97% per cent exactly) in the French-speaking electoral college, 50,758 people gave us their vote! We would like to thank everyone who supported us and took part in the campaign in one way or another. This shows us that against the tide of this reactionary wave, there are real aspirations for something else, for an emancipated society, free from capitalist exploitation and all other forms of oppression. This is the message that we carried throughout the campaign and the one that we will continue to carry.
Our observation is that anti-capitalism is much more widely shared in society than what would have us believe the right, the government left (which has continued since Sunday to deplore "the rise of extremes", shamefully putting an equal sign between the far right and the radical left) and the media, whose editorial choices have shown us how difficult it is to obtain fair treatment and media visibility in comparison with the established parties.
The Anti-capitalist Left would also like to thank the comrades of the NPA-L’Anticapitaliste , with whom we collaborated and who supported us through the presence of Philippe Poutou on our list, thus allowing us on a few rare occasions to open a breach in the media apathy around our candidacy.
Unite and fight!
Obviously, in the coming years we will find ourselves facing reactionary governments. We will therefore have to organize ourselves to fight against the attacks they are preparing against our social conquests (30 billion euros in “savings” announced in the state budget) and against an increasingly threatening far right.
On our level, the encouraging results of the Anti-capitalist list put us on the road to continue our combat. We commit ourselves to carry forward, with others, the construction of a red-green front, an eco-socialist and anti-capitalist front, which we need in order to resist in the face of the rise of the reactionary rights and the far right that the policy of the “lesser evil”, conducted by the government left and supported by a union bureaucracy, has not succeeded in containing. This strategy from above paralyzes the struggles by making them dependent on the apparatuses of these organizations. The only response to the fascist threat is a massive and democratic struggle, which brings together activists from all walks of life: anti-capitalists, environmentalists , trade unionists, anti-racists, anti-imperialists, feminists , LGBTI ...
The Anti-capitalist Left invites you right away, this Sunday, June 16, to take to the streets with the Anti-fascist Coordination of Belgium (CAB) against the far right and to reaffirm our rejection of its nauseating ideas and its racist and anti-social policies. This is an important initiative which must constitute a first step in the construction of this front.
Let’s learn to strike together - our future and the interests of our class depend on it.
11 June 2024
Translated by International Viewpoint from Gauche anticapitaliste.
- _See “The Anticapitalist Left presents a list for the European elections with Philippe Poutou”, https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article8501