Popular Consultations: Space for

the Convergence of Different Forces

The Case of Uruguay's  Frente Amplio.

By Marta Harnecker

Translated by Federico Fuentes

for Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal

[This is the eleventh in a series of regular articles.]

1. I have previously argued the case for the need to create a large social bloc against neoliberalism that can unite all those affected by the system. To achieve this, it is fundamental that we create spaces that allow for the convergence of specific anti-neoliberal struggles where, safeguarding the specific characteristics of each political or social actor, common tasks can be taken up that aid in strengthening the struggle.

2. In this respect, I think that popular consultations or plebiscites are very interesting spaces. These can allow us to mobilize behind a single concrete task of convincing -- undertaking door-to-door popular education -- a large number of people and youth who are beginning to awaken to politics, who want to contribute to a better world, who very often don’t know how to do it, and who are not willing to be active in the traditional way, because many of them reject politics and politicians.

 A Strategy for

Building Unity

By Marta Harnecker

translated by Federico Fuentes

for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

[This is the tenth in a series of regular articles. ]

1. I have previously referred to the necessity of building unity among all left forces and actors in order to be able to group a broad anti-neoliberal bloc around them. Nevertheless, I do not think that this objective can be achieved in a voluntarist manner, creating coordinating bodies from above that end up as simple sums of acronyms.

2. I believe that this unity can emerge through concrete struggles for common objectives. And that is why I think that we can help create better conditions for this unity if we put into practice a new strategy of anti-capitalist struggle.

3. We are talking about a strategy that takes into consideration the important social, political, economic and cultural transformations that have occurred across the world in the last period. One that understands that the new forms of capitalist domination go far beyond the economic and state sphere and have infiltrated into all the interstices of society, fundamentally through the mass media which has indiscriminately invaded the homes of all social sectors, and in doing so changed the conditions of struggle.