A GOVERNMENT WITHOUT SOLUTIONS
USURPS THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE

This is the first time in Argentina’s modern history that a government
falls as a result of the direct clamor of a people that has risen in
rebellion. In 1890, Juárez Celman resigned only after the revolution of
Parque had been defeated; 1930, against Irigoyen, was basically a
military coup. In 1945, the military government followed through on the
promise to carry out elections that Peron won. In 1989, the masses
didn’t hit the street to throw Alfonsin out. He left after agreeing to a
transition with Menem. These historical contrasts reveal the exceptional
nature of the popular uprising of last December 19-20.

A regime in crisis

Although the leading slogan was "Out with De la Rúa-Cavallo", the
overwhelming popular sentiment was an uprising against the political
regime as a whole. These revolutionary events had been preceded by
huge struggles in Neuquen and Córdoba against their respective
governors, Sobisch and De la Sota. The demonstrations in La Plata
against Ruckauf grew day by day, and became increasingly important
as evidenced by the takeover of Banco Provincia by teachers and other
government employees, with the backing of bank employees. The
political grapevine has it that Ruckauf’s main interest in replacing De la
Rúa was to get out of the political crisis in his own province. The judicial
system is in center stage, insofar as one of the leading popular
concerns is to get rid of a Supreme Court that has favored impunity with
its sentences. The repressive forces also star for spearheading the war
against the popular rebellion that put an end to De la Rúa-Cavallo. The
regime’s political crisis is in full swing.
Naturally, the mass media tried to divert popular anger targeting
political power towards a crusade against "politicians" and "politics",
which is something entirely different. Some "independent" leftist went
along with this maneuver and, sadly mimicking the Zapatistas, told the
people that the goal should not be to seize power.

The failure of parliamentarism

The history of struggles over the last decade, as a backdrop to this
popular uprising, fell short in making the exploited fight for a power
alternative. Understanding this need will come from impending political
struggles. Under these circumstances, power was relegated to the
legislative assembly, which tried to get rid of it as fast as it could. A
large group in the assembly, including Menemism, vied for applying
constitutional norms that call for Congress to appoint a government until
2003. That is, they did not want to govern or assume any political
responsibility for two years. The parliamentary left, including CTA
unionists, Walsh and Zamora, also failed to raise an alternative to this
decaying political regime. The issue of calling for popular elections to
replace De la Rúa’s mandate only surfaced when it became clear that
Peronism was unable to come up with a single candidate to represent
all its fractions. The crisis to name a president to complete the De la
Rúa’s term in office led to Puerta’s resignation and once again opened
the possibility of a political crisis fueled by a new impetus in the popular
movement. Peronism had to violate constitutional norms to overcome
this risky crisis; i.e., establishing a two-months government and calling
for elections by recourse to the "ley de lemas" [Translator’s Note: a
system whereby a party and its candidates can be listed on different
ballots and the party with most votes across all ballots wins, and the
candidate with most votes within that party wins]. When the situation
called for closing the gap opened by the popular uprising, Peronism
chose instead to transfer all its internal divisions to a popular election.

Hanging from a fine thread

As a result, we have a government that’s hanging from a fine thread,
made up of a clique that behaves as one. This is not a parliamentary
government even though Congress appointed it, because the latter
endowed it with the excessive powers the Constitution grants the
Executive in Argentina. However, it is not a truly executive government
for the simple reason that it lacks a mandate; the citizenry did not elect
it and it hardly earned the necessary votes in the legislative assembly.
With elections called for March 3, there is an interim government during
a revolutionary period. This government pretends to dilute the aroused
spirit of the masses with concessions. It can’t do this by taking deep
rooted measures because it is unable to do so and because the
economic demise that led to De la Rúa’ fall is a thousand times more
serious than a week ago. The social concessions are pro-forma but lack
substance, and they are clearly designed to confuse the people to the
utmost and to draw in a large part of the labor bureaucracy. Rodríguez
Saá has succeeded in this regard with Daer and Moyano, but also with
De Gennaro-D’Elia.
Rodríguez Saá is determined to project the image of a "by-gone"
Peronist government and there are some Peronists that believe this is a
retro to 1945. But most of these "national and popular" measures are
fictitious and extremely dangerous for workers.

The last stage in Cavallo’s plan

There is no suspension, postponement [moratorium] or default in the
foreign debt, as the government has excluded local debt holders to the
tune of 40-60 billion dollars that were swapped by Cavallo for
guaranteed loans. That is, they follow the same policy in privileging
bankers with domestic investments. If they were to repudiate this "
local" debt, and if the peso were devalued, the estimate is that banks
such as Río or Francés, owned by the Bolsa de Madrid [Stock
Exchange] would suffer the disappearance of 120% of their capital
assets. Galicia would fall off the map. The financial system would
collapse. Just like Cavallo, Rodríguez Saá’s government protects this
group of international banks. For this very reason it has stated it is
against devaluation and dollarization. More of the same.

Defending bankers

But Rodríguez Saá’s government is also careful to protect Cavallo’s
renegotiation of the bond-based debt with provincial governments,
which won’t fall into default or postponement [moratorium]. It also does
not intend to repudiate or suspend direct bank loans to the provinces.
All the above add up to 25 billion dollars. Owners of loans extended to
the provinces include banks such as Río, Galicia and Macro. Governors
have used these banks to perpetrate their shady deals. Members of
Frente Federal Solidario, backing Rodríguez Saá, hold special relations
with Macro, which took over the provincial banks of Corrientes (Romero
Feris), Misiones (Puerta) and Salta (Romero). In the midst of this huge
crisis, Macro found it was the right moment to buy Bansud from
Citibank, which reinforces a relationship of money laundering as clearly
denounced in US Senate documents.
Clearly, Rodríguez Saá won’t be able to defend 100% of the debt held
by foreign and local banks at 7% interest rates, and demand that
foreign holder accept a reduction of 50% to 60% and interests of 2%.
He’s only trying to buy time and force foreign banks to negotiate what
Cavallo failed to accomplish.

The world crisis

In any event, the collapse of the local bank system is still on the
agenda, more than ever before, because the US Treasury refuses to
negotiate new loans unless Argentina defines a substantial reduction in
the foreign debt, with the intent of breaking their European rivals. Thus,
the US Treasury and the European banks will have to deal with the
international consequences of the Argentine crisis that won’t merely be
financial. In Argentina the class struggle emerged combining modern
features of developed countries with national demands and grievances
as basic as the right to eat. Politically, our foreign comrades tell us
about the "impression" the Argentine revolution is exerting on their
peoples. Financially, the devaluation of Argentine bonds held by
Japanese banks is accentuating a devaluation of the Yen, something
the US Treasury is pushing for, and that could put Asia on fire.
Much more than a financial crisis
Local financial bankruptcy goes hand in hand with the bankruptcy of
privatized companies, also held by Madrid stockowners. Burdened with
a 15 billion dollar debt, as a result of buying YPF [Translator’s N ote:
formerly the State-owned oil company], Repsol is a leading candidate to
loose its head. Spanish service companies, as well as the "new"
Argentine Airlines, face the same predicament. This explains the
nervous negotiations being carried out by Rubén Cortina, Repsol’s
boss, and the trips of Felipe Gonzalez and those of the Spanish
Chancellor, Pique. At the same time, numerous "local" firms, such as
Exxel, Macri, Alpargatas, Pescarmona, Gattic, Acindar, and Irsa, have
"stopped payments". Rodríguez Saá wants to see the private debt
included in the "moratorium" of the "foreign" public debt, or in a
reduction in the size of the debt. But this could only happen if "local"
banks are included, which would lead to the same collapse by a
different route.
The policies put forth by this interim administration is trying to buy time
to declare default and devalue under different political conditions.
That’s the idea behind issuing the Argentino, which will coexist with the
peso while it is devalued, but will wind up replacing it as a previously
devalued national currency. Meanwhile, bank deposits will remain
"kidnapped" and will only be available in exchange for Argentinos. Isn’t
this the last stage in Cavallo’s plan, to postpone a formal declaration of
default and devaluation, in order to prevent social commotion?
Rodríguez Saá pursues even more energetically the policies that led to
Cavallo’s and De la Rúa’s fall.

Running around in circles

In this scenario, the idea of "creating a million jobs" is understandable,
because they are "work plans" on a large scale with no commitment to
last over time, and designed to allow issuing Argentinos and replacing
pesos with a non-convertible currency.
UIA’s [Translator´s Note: the Argentine Industrial Union] De Mendiguren
already said he was interested in hiring "subsidized labor", that is,
workers at 160 pesos, if import tariffs are imposed. De la Sota promised
to expand the number of plans "for the young", so far worth 100 pesos,
so that bosses can exploit a labor force for free. In the context of an
openly devaluationist policy, the provisional president promises to raise
the minimum salary to 450 pesos, to be paid with Argentinos, whose
real purchasing power will be around 200 pesos worth since 1991.
Along the same lines, he is considering getting rid of the 13% reduction
in retiree paychecks and public employee salaries. The new
government wants to give the impression it is constantly on the move,
so it can remain in the same place and prevent its fall. But all this fast
paced bustling is inversely proportional to the actual possibilities of the
measures taken.

A pretense of love; drawn together in panic

As a whole, the bourgeoisie is more divided and disoriented than ever.
The improvisations of Rodríguez Saá can’t rebuild economic relations,
whereby domestic and foreign trade is at a standstill. Exporters want to
know if VAT [value added tax] will be reimbursed in dollars or
Argentinos! Foreign chancellors are demanding that Bush’s
administration come up with a solution. The fire-setting IMF is being
called on once again to put out the fire. The economic crisis and the
capitalist collapse continue to drive the political crisis and are hatching
a new popular rebellion.
The working class vanguard and the picketers must become aware of
the insurmountable limitations of this interim government and of the
whole transitional political process negotiated in the back rooms of
Congress. Understanding this will give force to demands to repudiate
the foreign debt, to nationalize the banks and for worker control. The
revolutionary crisis has laid bare the potential mistake implicit in
demanding that the debt not be paid, because it is quite clear that this
purely practical approach to the problem can play into the hands of the
national bourgeoisie demagogues and into the hands of the "local"
fraction of imperialism.
The popular uprising and the revolutionary crisis have also exhausted
the possibility that a Constituent Assembly won by popular pressure
could be at the service of accumulating forces, even revolutionary
forces, on behalf of the working class. That is why it is more important
than ever that workers acquire their very own instruments of mass
organization and power to dictate a political solution for an authentic
and sovereign Constituent Assembly and a government of the workers.
The maturity of the political crisis can be seen in the flirtation of growing
fractions of the petit bourgeoisie with a call for a Constituent Assembly,
like that of Carrió and the Communist Party. The situation demands that
picketers lead in organizing Popular Assemblies, because the State is
unable to organize feeding, providing health care and education to the
people, and its policies lead to economic disruption.

Elections?

The call for March 3 elections are part of the arsenal of measures to
save the political regime. No governor, mayor, judge, chief of police, or
bureaucrat answers to the popular verdict. We denounce that they do
not intend to call for general elections. To reach the March elections the
bosses’ politicians will have to navigate treacherous waters. The
bourgeoisie has been forced to accept a power vacuum for two months.
The option of a coup by part of the Peronist leadership and Congress to
consecrate a president till 2003, without elections, is not only likely but
also enjoys Constitutional leave. We denounce that an attempt to abort
the March 2002 elections is in the works.
In the time that elapsed between the recent elections and the popular
uprising, the left discussed common initiatives but was never able to
agree on a political strategy. The call for March elections has refloated
a new wave of electoralism; the call signed by PO [Partido Obrero –
Workers Party] with IU [Izquierda Unida – United Left], FOS (Frente
Obrero y Socialista – Workers and Socialist Front] and LSR (Liga
Socialista Revolucionaria – Socialist Revolutionary League], on
Saturday 22, to work towards Popular Assemblies, was put aside as
soon as it had been uttered. A possible electoral fight should be
inescapably tied to a strategy whereby the path set by the popular
uprising can lead to final victory. We call on all leftist organizations to
organize a political Assembly with picketer’s and militant organizations
to set a strategy that can lead the revolution underway to victory.
Today’s slogan is: Down with the political continuity of bankers and
bankrupt capitalists. Popular Assemblies. Out with the agents of the
hated regime. For a sovereign Constituent Assembly in the nation,
provinces and municipalities.

Partido Obrero
www.po.org.ar
 webmaster@po.org.ar

Local Central
 ayacucho@po.org.ar