The formation of the ARI (Revolutionary Left Alliance), the electoral coalition in support of the campaign of Hugo Blanco for president of Peru, caught the military dictatorship by surprise.
The regroupment behind Blanco of nearly all revolutionary organizations and the forces of the workers movement who are fighting for a "government without generals or bosses" did not enter into their plans. To the contrary, they had counted on a continuation of the traditional division and atomization of the revolutionary and workers forces of Peru.
This united candidacy, imposed by the pressure of the masses, had a considerable impact once it became a concrete reality.
For example, in the poverty-stricken shantytowns surrounding Lima where more than half the city's population lives, dozens of support committees for the ARI have been formed spontaneously. Volunteers have trooped into the headquarters of the various parties that make up the ARI, offering their aid to the campaign. In these same shantytowns, a recent poll showed that nearly a quarter of the residents intended to vote for Blanco in the May 18 election.
The dictatorship's response was not long in coming. In the press, which is still under strict control, a hysterical campaign is being waged presenting the ARI and Blanco as the major threat to "harmonious democratization" of Peru and to the actual holding of the elections.
The ultrareactionary sector of the army, which favors maintaining the dictatorship and opposes the army returning to the barracks, points to the danger represented by the personal prestige of Blanco and the united character of his candidacy to try to reinforce their position. This sector is at present a small minority inside the armed forces.
With the avowed objective of dividing the ARI, the state-controlled radio and television have launched a campaign of slander against Blanco's party, the PRT (Revolutionary Workers Party, the Peruvian section of the Fourth International).
The PRT is presented as an illegal formation, the Peruvian instrument of an "international operation of Trotskyism and the Fourth International" whose aim is to use Blanco's candidacy to implant itself in the rest of Latin America.
Apart from seeking to sow divisions in the ARI, the slander campaign is also intended to instify the refueal to legalize intended to justify the refusal to legalize the PRT. According to Peruvian election law, drafted by the dictatorship, only legally recognized parties have the right to present candidates.
ARI, an electoral alliance, includes the UDP (Democratic People's Unity), which was legalized at the time of the elections for the Constituent Assembly and which can therefore legally present candidates. Because of this, Blanco's candidacy cannot be challenged on the basis of the election law.
But parallel with the organization of the electoral front, many parties are carrying out a campaign for their own legalization. This is the case for three organizations in Peru that claim adherence to Trotskyismthe PRT, POMR (Revolutionary Marxist Workers Party, affiliated with the Organizing Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International), and the PST (Socialist Workers Party, affiliated with the Bolshevik Faction, which recently split from the Fourth International).
None of the organizations in the ARI coalition that are seeking legalization have as yet obtained such status. The only revolutionary organization at present legalized is, as if by coincidence, the only one that is not a member of the ARI and has refused to support Blanco's candidacy-the PST.
The PST was officially recognized as a legal party almost immediately after it made known that it refused to participate in the ARI or support Blanco's candidacy.
The PRT and POMR, which both collected the same number of signatures as the PST (some 60,000 each, although 40,000 was the official requirement), are still awaiting a response, although the time allowed for such rulings by the national election court has already expired.
According to the court, a large number of the signatures obtained by the two organizations will not be validated. The argument was that their lists of signatures contained too many "illiterates," and the court declared itself incompetent to "verify their signatures"!
Since the Constituent Assembly had granted the right to vote to illiterates, who comprise more than 35 percent of the population, this decision in effect annuls part of that right.
It was also argued that some of the signers had already signed, in 1978, for the legalization of APRA (American Peoples Revolutionary Alliance-a bourgeoisnationalist formation headed, until his death last year, by Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre). Two years later, they are still officially considered supporters of APRA and are not allowed to sign for the legalization of another party.