[Marxism] (Canadian) Election 2008 and Beyond: Radical-Left Strategy...

[Pance Stojkovski]

Election 2008 and Beyond:
Radical-Left Strategy in a Time of Right-Wing
Consensus and “Centre-Left” Illusion

Nathan Rao

In these difficult times, those of us on the radical Left have learned to be grateful for tender mercies. And so it goes with the results of the October 14th federal election. A few bits of good news immediately come into view: the hard-Right crew around Stephen Harper was denied a majority government; and the main beneficiaries of the majority rejection of the Conservatives were not the centre-Right Liberals, whose crisis continues unabated, but rather the nominally social-democratic NDP, the sovereignist Bloc Québécois and the vaguely left-liberal Greens.

The Conservatives overplayed the limited hand they were dealt in the 2006 elections. In a context of growing capitalist economic crisis – played out spectacularly during the campaign itself – and US-led imperialist overreach in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Caucasus, there is real disquiet, especially in Quebec, about their hyper-neoliberal and militarist agenda. Conservative strategists felt they had a small window of opportunity to secure a majority government – before the economic slowdown hit and before their American neo-con counterparts were thrown out of office. In the event, the window was even smaller than they thought and the opportunity perhaps not so great after all.

complete Bullet:
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet151.html