Socialist Alliance retains registration

MELBOURNE — After months of effort, the Socialist Alliance has retained its Victorian electoral registration. This means its name will appear on the ballot in seats it contests in the November 2010 state elections.

The website of the Victorian Electoral Commission currently lists 11 registered parties. The Greens and the Socialist Alliance are the only left-of-centre organisations with ballot status and the Socialist Alliance is the only avowedly socialist one.

The rest are the mainstream capitalist parties (Liberals, ALP, Nationals) or conservative or right-wing outfits like Family First, the Democratic Labor Party or the Citizens Electoral Council.

Over the last decade or so, federal and state governments have enacted ever more restrictive and undemocratic electoral laws designed to marginalise all radical alternatives to the status quo.

Keeping its electoral registration will enable the Socialist Alliance to more effectively present the people-before-profits alternative to the big business agenda pushed by both the Victorian Brumby state Labor government and the Coalition.

From GLW issue 782