Argentine Communists meet with Evo Morales

A delegation of members of the Communist Party of Argentina and the Communist Youth Federation met in Buenos Aires with exiled Bolivian President Evo Morales and other Bolivian exiles on January 15. The communist group included Victor Kot, Communist Party Secretary General, and others.

Morales and his vice president, Álvaro García Linera, had originally found refuge in Mexico after being overthrown in a coup late last year. Since then, they have moved to Argentina, where the new left-wing president, Alberto Fernández, made them welcome. Morales has been giving input to his MAS party on new elections scheduled in Bolivia this year. Kot expressed the full solidarity of the Argentine communists and their allies and denounced the national and international pressure being put on President Fernández to withdraw Morales’ right to asylum in Argentina.

UK CP warns of new anti-worker moves

After the disastrous loss by the Labour Party in the most recent elections in the United Kingdom, the Communist Party of Britain is warning that the strengthened Tory government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson will now launch a new and vicious campaign to roll back the rights of the working class and slash the social safety net.

Party Chair Liz Payne told the Political Committee on January 15 that Johnson’s government will now undertake radical new austerity measures and increase taxes on the working class: “Voters who believed Johnson’s populist promises will be bitterly disappointed.” Payne also warned that there will be new attacks on labor unions in Britain, including the right to strike.

Israel: Joint List aims to pick up 15 Knesset seats in March 3 election

The leaders of the four parties that make up the electoral Joint List in Israel are confident that they can pick up 15 new seats in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) in the new elections to be held on March 2 of this year. The Joint List includes three mostly Israeli-Arab parties and also the socialist coalition Hadash. The Communist Party of Israel, also called the Maki, has participated in Hadash from its inception.

In the April and September elections last year, divisions within the Joint List are thought to have undercut its performance, and only five Joint List candidates made it to the Knesset, three of whom are Communists. Also, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had run a viciously anti-Arab scare campaign. But now Netanyahu is being indicted for corruption, and polling data are suggesting that the Joint List may well reach its 15-seat goal.

Sudan: Communists oppose dissolution of Bashir-era unions

The Sudanese Communist Party has expressed strong disagreement with the plan by the government to abolish labor unions that had come into being under the regime of overthrown dictator Omar Hassan Al-Bashir. In December, the current justice minister of Sudan, Nasreldin Abdelbari, had announced a plan to dissolve all organizations that had been under the control of Al-Bashir and his associates, and included some labor unions aligned with the former government under this planned proscription. “Steering committees” would be set up to replace the unions.

But Faiza Nugud, a leading member of the Sudanese Communist Party’s Central Trade Union Office, has now responded with a criticism of this move. Rather, she said, laws undermining the right to organize should be repealed, and a 1987 pre-Bashir labor law should be restored for the time being. People’s General Assemblies are the correct democratic bodies to remove labor union leaders connected to the dictatorship.

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