2023-05-01 17:42:48
This month of May marks the first year of Rodrigo Chaves’ government and we can state with total clarity that the situation of the working class is not improving as expected. Despite having been elected by less than a third of the electoral roll, this government has maintained a high popularity that only recently began to drop in a context of high unemployment, rising cost of living and levels of violence at historical rates.
Things get worse for the working class as the rich keep winning
The beginning of this administration was marked by the greatest popularity in 30 years. These high levels of approval have not meant concrete improvements in our living conditions as the working class, quite the contrary, it has been used by the president to maintain and deepen a pro-business model with a high degree of authoritarianism.
Very specific sectors that financed Rodrigo Chaves’ campaign are the ones that have been benefiting from his measures. We can cite the so-called rice route to favor large importers such as Bernal Jiménez Chavarría who contributed close to 32 million to the campaign or the plans to increase the age of the buses and the appointment in the Public Transport Council of the bus driver Esteban Ramírez Biolley who contributed 16 million to the current president’s campaign.
The economy, for its part, continues to grow hand in hand with special regimes such as free zones where the medical parts industry is housed for export. Exports such as medical devices or products such as pineapples benefit a small sector of society made up of the richest sectors, so when it is said that the economy is improving, it is specifically for the interests of a few.
On the sidewalk of the working class the results are not encouraging. Concerns about unemployment, insecurity and the cost of living continue to increase without there being concrete measures that mean any achievement.
Inflation closed in February as the highest in 10 years with a marked increase in basic consumer products such as eggs, unemployment affects about 300,000 people, the majority of whom are women, and levels of violence are extremely high, thus closing the year with more than 850 homicides.
We cannot trust this government to change our situation. Some people insist that “you have to give it time” when in these first months it has already demonstrated its pro-business nature, others say that the problem is the legacy of more than twenty years of past governments, when in reality this government deepens the route of attacks and cuts from their predecessors.
No to the payment of the debt to invest in work, land, education, health, housing and care!
This government maintains the recipe of applying harsh cuts to public investment, reaching the point of giving the lowest budget for education in the last 10 years. The approval of the Public Finance Law in the government of Carlos Alvarado meant deepening these cuts by attacking salaries in the public sector and imposing the fiscal rule to prevent growth in public investment, this last measure in particular has even led to the risk of that services such as 911 emergency care disappear.
These great sacrifices are made to meet the demands of the International Monetary Fund, an organization of which Rodrigo Chaves was an official. After squeezing public budgets and state salaries almost to the death, the government announces that for the first time since 2019 the relationship between debt and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood at 59%.
This slight reduction in the debt is not done so that more resources can be allocated to the most immediate needs of work, education, housing or health. But to continue guaranteeing your payments of debt that is about to expire with high interest rates or to subscribe new indebtedness loans to pay the debt itself.
From the PT we have indicated that the debt is a mechanism to strangle the country and that there is no way to meet the needs of our people by maintaining payments to private usurious interests in the internal or external market.
The immediate suspension of payments to private creditors of internal or external debt is an increasingly pressing need that must be accompanied by an audit that demonstrates the real corrupt businesses on the list of lenders. Looking ahead to this May 1st, we must remember the need to not pay the debt to invest in work, land, education, health, housing and care, among other great needs of our working families.
The resources that today are going into the hands of corrupt debt businesses should be immediately allocated to a Public Works Plan that guarantees immediate attention to the needs of the working people.
Rodrigo Chaves is an enemy of working class women
In this context of growing unemployment and rising rates of violence, women bear the brunt.
The unemployment rate for men was estimated at 9.5% and that for women at 15.2%, almost double. 45% of women cannot work for pay or at least look for a job where they receive pay, due to their family responsibilities, while in the case of men, this reason represents only 3%, which shows those great inequalities that remains in our society. The State must guarantee free and universal care services so that women can go out to work effectively.
The violent deaths of women are one of the most extreme expressions of these inequalities, while the institutions of the Judiciary are incapable of even condemning the femicides to compensate a little for the damage caused to these women and their families.
We must continue to demand that the government declare an emergency due to violence against women, so that the victim care system can guarantee protection, material support and mental health to the victims and their families.
To add to the hard problems that women face, this government tries to get its hands on the technical standard for therapeutic abortion and aligns itself with ultra-conservative positions such as those of Fabricio Alvarado and the Evangelical Alliance. Today it is more necessary to strengthen the women’s movement with a combative character, independent of the government, corrupt institutions and at the service of the working class to fight against sexist violence and to guarantee the demands for comprehensive sexual education, for contraceptives for not to abort, and for legal and free abortion so that women do not die from clandestine and unhealthy abortions.
The struggle must take place with the unity of the working class, for which we must make every effort to unite the unions of the public and private, national and foreign sectors, fighting all the false divisions promoted by the bosses themselves that feed on the machismo, homophobia, racism and other forms of division that we must combat.
Come build the PT as a political and fighting tool for the working class
At a time when the disarticulation of the popular and union movement is so great, and despair seizes many people, those of us who built the PT believe that it is urgent to advance in the construction of a political party to organize the struggle of the working class to win the power in this society.
Today we live in the misery of capitalism because society is managed by a small group of big businessmen and their rulers, which is why we must fight to build a type of government that is exercised by the working majority, and only then begin to build a society free of exploitation and oppression, where the main thing will be to satisfy the needs of the majority.
For this reason, this May 1st we invite you to build the party of the working class with our militancy.
No confidence in the pro-business government of Chaves, for the unity of the working class to fight for employment and decent living conditions!
No to the payment of the debt to invest in work, land, education, health, housing and care
Immediate Price and Fee Freeze, Emergency Wage Raises to Meet the Rough Rise!
For a debt-financed Public Works Plan to guarantee Work, Land and Education, Health, Housing and Care!!
Reduction of the work day to 40 hours without a reduction in salary so that more people can work!
Revocability of the Judiciary so that those who deny justice to women victims of violence can leave!
Sex education to decide, contraceptives not to abort, legal and free abortion to not die!
Free and universal care service so that more women can work!
¡Down with the Public Employment Law and all the measures that cut the public budget such as the fiscal rule!
For an agrarian reform that puts an end to the latifundio and puts the land in the hands of those who work it!
For the unity of the working class to face the interests of the big business that Chaves defends!
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