Following the election of ultra-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro as president on October 28, left MPs and party leaders in Brazil have warned about the dangers that a reformed military government could bring to the country.
elections
Brazilians vote on October 28 in an election that will be critical for the future of Latin America. Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who topped the first round of the presidential election on October 7, faces off against the Workers’ Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad in the second round vote.
Facing the real prospect of a Bolsonaro win, the country’s social movements are stepping up their efforts to confront fascism, at the polls and on the streets.
In September, the federal Coalition government announced it would provide an extra $4.5 billion directly to fee-charging Catholic and independent schools, to be spent any way they choose.
NSW Minister for Education Rob Stokes commented that his government will not sign up to a needs-based, sector-blind funding scheme, but it is neither of those things.
The unexpected strength of far-right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro in the October 7 Brazilian presidential elections sent shockwaves throughout the country, writes James N Green.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to restore confidence in the government after crashing to a humiliating defeat in the October 14 Bavarian state elections, Morning Star Online reported.
The Christian Social Union (CSU) — sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats — polled 37%, its worst vote for more than six decades. It lost its majority in Germany’s southern state in a major defeat for the governing parties.
Quebec’s October 1 general election campaign in Quebec unfolded as two distinct contests, writes Richard Fidler.
One contest was the competition between the Liberals and Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) for control of the government.
The other contest in the predominantly French speaking province of Canada, with a long history of struggling for national sovereignty, was between the Parti québécois (PQ) and Québec solidaire (QS) for hegemony within the pro-sovereignty movement.
In 2009, 20 years after the negotiated end to a brutal civil war, the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), former guerrillas turned political party, finally won the presidency of El Salvador. But, writes David Grosser, with the second FMLN administration nearing its end, a third term after next year’s presidential vote is very much in doubt.
Jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has increased his support by five percentage points and would win Brazil’s October presidential election if he was allowed to run, a poll by CNT/MDA showed on August 20.
This news came just days the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee said the Brazilian state must “take all necessary measures” to allow Lula, the candidate of the left-leaning Workers Party (PT), to exercise his full political rights as a candidate in the presidential elections.
Observing the aftermath of the July 30 elections in Zimbabwe is like watching the remake of a movie. You know the ending, but watch to see how the new actors play their role and if there are any new twists.
The basic Zimbabwe storyline is that the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic front (ZANU-PF) has never lost an election since it took power after the liberation war ended in 1980.
Last September, while campaigning for the position of Lord Mayor of Newcastle and a ward councillor, I bumped into an NSW Labor Party officer at a coffee shop.
“Comrade”, he said, “You’ve got some great policies”. “Feel free to borrow any of them,” I relied cheekily. “Our housing policy, for example, is based on Socialist Alliance councillor Sue Bolton's work in Moreland, Victoria.”
The next day the local papers reported that ALP candidates were talking up “affordable housing”.








