Elections

  • Venezuela: Future uncertain as right launch recall against Maduro

    Venezuela's right-wing opposition coalition, the Roundtable of Democratic Unity (MUD), has officially launched its signature collection campaign to force a recall referendum this year against socialist President Nicolas Maduro.  Thousands of opposition supporters flocked to sign the petition in public squares across the country on April 27 after MUD spokespeople confirmed they had received the official go-ahead from Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE). 

  • Letter from US: Sanders campaign helps spark Democrat crisis

    The divisions in the Republican Party over Donald Trump's candidacy in Republican primaries have been the subject of much commentary — and it remains to be seen how this will play out. We may not know until the Republican convention. But the divisions in the Democratic Party due to the Bernie Sanders' candidacy in Democrat primaries are coming more and more to the fore — including in the capitalist press.

  • People want a fairer tax system: survey

    Remember the discussion the Coalition government was going to have with us about tax? You know, the one where “everything was on the table”? Well, the metaphorical table, which started off as an enormous boardroom centrepiece carved from oak is now looking more like a tatty old cardtable with a wonky leg, as more and more items are dropped. Even Treasurer Scott Morrison's near-daily mantra of "We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem" is apparently not resonating with most Australians.

  • Britain: 'Brexit' vote dividing all sides, but Corbyn right to campaign to remain

    British politics is being dominated by the June 23 referendum on whether Britain leaves the European Union (EU) — the so-called Brexit. This is a question that has, over recent decades, threatened to fatally divide the British right. But left forces also hold contradictory perspectives on the question. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, the Green Party of England and Wales and Left Unity are calling for a “yes” vote to remain in the European Union, but are demanding an alternative to the neoliberal EU.

  • "Us" — a poem

    Elizabeth Jarrett. Well here it is 2016 Yet we are still ruled under an illegal regime It's time for a change in Histories what's, when's and how's What they say was once discovered is invaded now We don't want recognition in the constitution For being recognised is not the solution What we need is this current government’s dissolution

  • Pakistani socialist: 'We are fighting for women's liberation'

    Sarah Eleazar is a Pakistani journalist and member of the socialist Awami Workers Party (AWP). She co-edits Tajdeed, a left research journal in Urdu. Eleazar will be a featured guest at the Socialist for the 21st Century conference in Sydney on May 13-15. She spoke with Green Left Radio on Melbourne community station 3CR in March about the fight for women’s liberation and socialism in Pakistan. The first part of an abridged transcript is below. ***

  • The (un)Democratic primary — game rigged against the 99%

    Despite a decisive victory on April 19, providing further confirmation of her likely nomination, in many respects Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton emerged from the New York primary more damaged and her party more divided.

  • Canada: Climate justice movement shakes the NDP

    In a stunning rebuff to the party establishment, delegates to the federal convention of the Canada’s social democratic New Democratic Party, meeting in Edmonton, Alberta April 8-10, voted to reject Thomas Mulcair as their leader. They voted to begin reorienting the party to become a leader in Canada’s climate justice movement.

  • Peru: Huge fraud allegations mar presidential vote, leftist scores high

    Supporters of leftist candidate Veronika Mendoza protest electoral fraud. Lima, April 10. Photo: EFE. Peruvian left-wing presidential candidate Veronika Mendoza came third in the first round of Peru's presidential elections on April 10, behind former World Bank economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Keiko Fujimoro, the daughter of a jailed ex-president.