Translated "Avante!" article by Angelo Alves, Member of the Political Committee and of the International Department

At the time this article is written, the outcome of the USA presidential elections is unknown. But most important than knowing who will be the next USA president, is moreover to reflect on what these elections are, within which framework they take place and what they represent. Three notes:

1. The North-American elections are the most mediatised electoral process throughout the world. Such fact is not dissociable from the ideological permanent campaign which introduces the USA as the “most advanced democracy in the world”. It is not a question of analysing the North-American society, at the light of our democracy concept , its socio-economic system and the regime that goes with it. If otherwise, one would easilycome to the conclusion that, at the economic, social and even cultural levels, the USA has in reality much to owe to a basic notion of what is real democracy. Owing to the current moment, one ought to approach the political and electoral systems conceived in order to keep untouched the North-American dominant class power together with its imperialist power system and perpetuate in power the two North-American great political centres - the Democratic and Republican parties. Parties which represent different shares of the North-American great capital, but a same ideology, dividing between themselves, independently of who occupies the White House, a complex power intrigue and influence at the economic, political and military levels.

The political system plays its part, hindering, in practise, the other political forces, out of the two system parties, concerning the USA’s destinies administration. But not only the engulfed political and electoral systems, guarantee the permanence at the White House of the “two heads” of a same power. The electoral campaigns financing have an important role on this issue. In these elections, the two parties together, ought to have spent nothing more or less than six thousand million dollars. An astronomical amount, which in practice, shows who is behind the North-American “democracy”, moving, moreover, as a “decantation filter” when concerning any eventual political alternatives.

2- In contrast with the 2008 setting, created round the “Yes, we can!” slogan, these elections were marked by a pessimistic and disillusion atmosphere. Owing to a fundamental reason: the USA is engulfed in a deep crisis, and worse than that, at the brink of a new and violent crisis episode. Holding a debt which has reached 100% of the GDP ,of more than 15 billion ( million of millions) of dollars; growing unemployment which in real terms has reached round 14%, a stagnated economy and a galloping state deficit, the economic recession spectrum within the main imperialist power ought to become a reality at the beginning of the year, when, the so-called “fiscal cliff” will be imposed, in other words, drastic cuts in public expenditure will take place ( about 600 thousand million dollars), increasing taxes and, of course, many more sacrifices for the working class, of one of the most unequal countries in the world.

3- One might conclude, upon the campaign and further debates, both candidates defended exactly the same militarist foreign policy, of interference and planetarium re-colonization. Obama showed to be , in practice, as or even more bellicose than George W. Bush. Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, the anti-missile system, Guantanamo are, among others, proofs of this statement. Proofs which do give reason to all what the PCP has stated since 2008, when many said Obama would change the world. But, amid these elections, there is a new fact one ought to highlight. Before Mitt Romney’s fascist positions, in several areas, the Democratic party moved much more towards the right-wing, converging on what concerns the economic and social policies’ level with the traditional Republican party’s policies. This re-focusing on the right-wing, drags along great dangers for both the World and the North-American people. Therefore, and independently of these elections results, one ought to be certain of: only the struggle, towards a rupture of the USA’s power system ought to open up change perspectives, within the world’s greatest imperialist power, wounded by its economic decline.