MEXICO // POLITICAL CRISIS

Make the struggle against Peña Nieto and the murderous PRI-PAN-PRD democracy, open to everyone

After the mass actions of October and November, 2014, the movement carried out new actions for the return of the student teachers alive, like the December 26 mobilizations and those that the teachers of Guerrero are carrying out, together with the parents of the students that disappeared and the student teachers of Ayotzinapa.

Now, other groups – like the nurses and student nurses – are joining, that can encourage the coming out of other unions and workers that resent this government’s harsh reactionary plans, as is the case with the petroleum workers, where 10,000 layoffs were announced, or that of the teachers of Oaxaca against the federalization of the payments.

For its part, the National Educational Workers Coordinating Committee approved a national plan of struggle in solidarity with the demands of the Ayotzinapa student teachers and the parents of the disappeared, together with other social and labor demands.

The loss of prestige of the government and the institutions has intensified. The accusation of the Army’s participation in the disappearance of the student teachers, and the threats of repression – that materialized against those that mobilized against Infantry Battalion 27 of Iguala – show the true character of the state institutions.

The tendency towards political crisis – in a context of strong storm clouds in the economy – is fed with new crises in different states of the country – like Guerrero – where the government shows the difficulty of stabilizing and guaranteeing governability. Facing this year’s mid-term elections, different groups are making the proposal of boycotting the elections in different ways.

Faced with this, it is necessary to strengthen the struggle against Peña Nieto and this brutal democracy of the PRI, PAN and PRD, and open the struggle to everyone.

For a big national mobilization

It is for that reason that, from the Socialist Workers Movement, as can be followed on our webpage www.mtsmexico.org, we are proposing promoting a big new national mobilization that will strike at Peña Nieto’s government and will show that the movement continues to increase.

The unions and popular organizations must apply all their strength, turning the eighth Day of Global Action called for this January 26, into a day that will bring together millions in the streets of the entire country, and will take up again what we began on November 20, with the strike of the telephone operators and other groups.

Let us promote a national meeting for the struggle

To strengthen and broaden the movement, it is necessary to build a national organization based on delegates from the rank and file. Recently, the National People’s Assembly decided on an upcoming "meeting of the representatives of the united leaders, unions, social organizations and collectives." That could be a step forward, but it is essential that the big unions actively join this organization.

In that sense, it is necessary to take concrete measures, like carrying out a big National Conference of Struggle would be, with delegates subject to recall and with a mandate from the rank and file, where a unified National Plan will be discussed.

Among others, the National Workers’ Union (that brings together the telephone operators, university workers and other groups), the democratic teachers organized in the CNTE, and the Mexican Union of Electricians, but also the student nurses and nurses in struggle, and student organizations, like the Inter-University Assembly, must be part of this national organization.

A need that is emerging from the current mobilizations is a unified list that, starting from the struggle against Peña Nieto and the PRI-PAN-PRD and for the return alive of the student teachers, will consist of the demands from the rest of the groups: like the release of the political prisoners, the halt to the murders of journalists, and against the reforms in the health sector.

The workers must head the struggle

It is essential to add to the struggle the broadest groups of the workers’ movement: from the unions that claim to be in opposition, up to the millions that do not have unions, or that suffer the oppression of the corrupt union bosses from the ruling party.

Since October, in the Socialist Workers Movement [MTS], at different forums, assemblies and street mobilizations, we have proposed preparing the conditions for a real Political General Strike, until Peña Nieto and the PRI-PAN-PRD leave, and imposing a provisional government of the organizations of the workers, farmers and people in struggle.

Against any illusion that it is possible to reform the institutions, it is necessary to fight to the end, to put an end to the institutions of this brutal democracy, that cannot be reformed and is at the service of the employers and the United States government.

This provisional government of the organizations in struggle could call a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly, to discuss and resolve the long postponed demands.

For a truly free and sovereign Constituent Assembly

But this cannot be convened by this political regime nor carried out while Peña Nieto stays in power. Let us promote it on the ruins of these institutions – like the Congress, the law, the state and municipal governments in collusion with drug-trafficking – organized independently of the parties of this murderous democracy, without any restriction and with equal access to the communications media for the organizations of the workers, farmers, people and the left, with representatives elected by universal suffrage for every fifty thousand inhabitants, that will be subject to recall and will earn the same as a teacher, where all those over the age of 16 will vote.

There we will have to discuss – together with the return alive of our comrades, the release of the political prisoners, opposition to militarization and to the murder of women – how we will confront the Free Trade Treaty and all the agreements that bind us to imperialism.

In addition to overthrowing all the reactionary reforms, like those regarding energy, education and work, meeting the demand for land for the farmers and self-determination for the indigenous peoples, and putting a stop to the surrender of natural resources to the transnational corporations.

To impose this perspective, the revolutionary mobilization of the workers and the people and the development of their organizations of direct democracy, will be necessary. In this struggle, we socialists of the MTS would propose that it is necessary to go all the way, by expropriating the capitalists and the transnational corporations and ending this system of exploitation and brutality.