BELGIAN LEFT SOCIALISTS CONDUCT ING VIGOROUS ELECTION CAMPAIGN ©
BRUSSELS, May 3 -- The general elections in Belgium are scheduled for Macy 25. Although many signs indicate a turn in the economic situation, full employment is still general and no decisive change in the political relation of forces will be registered at the polls. The present coalition government, in which the two biggest parties in the country -- the Catholics and reformist Social Democrats == are participating, holds a comfortable majority in parlia~ ment that cannot be upset even by heavy: losses.
Particular interest therefore centers on the probable losses. It.is expected generally that the Catholic party will lose rather: heavily to the old Liberal party which is campaigning among conser-
vative middle~class voters with a straight anti-union line. It is also expected to lose some seats to the Flemish nationalists.
As for the Socialist party, the expectation is that it will lose some seats to the left Socialists and. the Communist party, both of whom are denouncing the antiworking-class character of many policies of the coalition government during the past four years, | The size of the losses will provide some indication as to the degree of working-class discontent in the country and the extent to which the vanguard of some tens of thousands of workers have broken loose from reformist influence,
The young left Socialist party, formed only a few months ago, is meeting its first important test in campaigning during the electoral contest. Although it is still in process of getting itself organized, it has ambitiously decided to run virtually a full slate (there are but few exceptions) in the Walloon part of the country and in the Brussels area.
In the Liége region, where the party has its strongest -mass base, it is contesting all the ‘seats for the House of Representa= tives, the Senate and the Provincial Assembly as an independent party. The same course is being followed in the near-by ‘Verviers area. In all the other areas (Charleroi, Borinage, Namur, Brussels, ete.), the left Socialists have formed an electoral bloc with the Communist party in order to prevent the left vote from being split.
Negotiations were conducted with both the pro-Moscow and the pro~-Peking Communist parties, but the latter refused to join.
The bloc was formed on a principled basis; i.e., a minimum program in general conformity with the left Socialist program and much to the left of the official Communist party line. For instance, in place of the traditional CP formula of “antimonopoly structural reforms,'' the electoral bloc stands on “anticapitalist structural reforms"; in place of "for a broad coalition of democratic antimonopoly forces," the bloc calls "for a workers! government"; in place of the official CP slogan "for a nonaggression pact between the countries of the Warsaw pact and the NATO countries," the slogan of the bloc is "Get Belgium out of NATO," a slogan long’ defended only by the left Socialists.
Most significantly, in place of the CP line favoring "peace negotiations in Vietnam," the platform of the electoral bloc has the following two slogans: "Get American troops out of Vietnam} ' For the right of self-determination by the Vietnamese people}3"
Besides the political success in negotiating the platform of the electoral bloc, the left Socialists also made significant gains in working out the common slate. In the contests for seats from the provincial assembly level on up, the number of candidates is evenly
divided between the Communist party and left Socialists.
In Brussels the list of candidates for parliament is headed by Pierre Le Gréve, chairman of the Brussels teachers union. Le Gréve is very well known for his trade-union activities and sympathy with the colonial revolution. A few years ago, during the Algerian war, he was nearly killed by a bomb planted *y the French secret service.
The left Socialists also head the slates in Seignies (the candidate is a worker in the Boél steel works, the main plant in that area) and in Namur,
They were also granted top place in the senate contest for Charleroi, Borinage, Thuin and Nivelles,
The left Socialists have made clear that they are engaging in a purely electoral bloc and not a political alliance. They are maintaining the complete autonomy of their organization and are not conducting a common electoral campaign with the Communist party, In fact in their election propaganda they stress the points separa= ting them from the Communist party, especially the fight for work ers democracy in the Soviet Union and the other workers states and the struggle against the opportunist policies of the Communist parties in Western Europe.
CAMILLE HUYSMANS