(AUG 12, 2013) The big setback of the national government, that fell not only from 54% in 2011, but from the meager 30% that it got in its worst election in the 2009 legislative elections, now getting little more than 26% throughout the country, was expressed in the strengthening of options supported from the right, like the Frente Renovador of Sergio Massa, that won in the Province of Buenos Aires, or the UCR of Julio Cobos in Mendoza, while in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), the misnamed UNEN "coalition," in reality a confused mixture of those of the center-left and of the center-right, surpassed Macri’s PRO. In that context, the Christian Castillo’s Press Release // Excellent election outcome for the Left and Workers’ Front (FIT) obtained almost 900,000 votes nationally in 19 provinces, taking into account the alliance and its member parties, by raising a clear program of workers’ political independence.

We got third place in Mendoza, with 7.7% of the votes for the list headed by our young leader Nicolás del Caño (PTS), and in Formosa (PO), with 5.2%.

The remarkable fifth place, achieved in the Province of Buenos Aires, with almost 340,000 votes (around 4%) for the list headed by Néstor Pitrola (PO) and Myriam Bregman (PTS), which, in the October elections, puts the Left and Workers’ Front very close to getting one or two national Deputies, provincial legislators with the list headed by Christian Castillo (PTS) in the strategic Third Electoral Section of Greater Buenos Aires (GBA), and city councillors. The lists of the Left and Workers’ Front won a lot of votes in the areas of greatest working-class composition, of GBA.

The sixth place in Córdoba is also very important, because of the 5.6% of the votes won by the list headed by Liliana Olivero (IS), accompanied by the autoworker Hernán “Bocha” Puddu (PTS) and Eduardo Salas (PO), with more than 9% in Córdoba City.

We achieved fourth place in Neuquén, with 6.7%, with the lists for Deputies headed by the ceramics worker Andrés Blanco (PTS) and for Senators by the teachers’ leader of the ATEN union, Patricia Jure (PO); in Jujuy, with 9.3% for the list in which the municipal worker Alejandro Vilca (PTS) was the first candidate; in Salta (11.3%), Santa Cruz (7.8%) and Río Negro (6.3%) for the lists headed by the PO; in the City of Buenos Aires, with the lists that Jorge Altamira (PO) headed for Deputies (4.2%) and Claudio Dellecarbonara (PTS) for Senators (3.7%), and in Santiago del Estero (IS) with 4%.

In Tucumán, the WLF also achieved fifth place with 3.9% of the votes.

In turn, the lists of the WLF managed to exceed the prohibitive minimum thoroughly in Santa Fe, by getting 2.6% for the list that carried, as its first candidate, the ANSES worker, Octavio Crivaro (PTS), in Chaco (PO) with 2.5%, La Rioja (IS) with 3.6%, La Pampa (PTS) with 1.51%, San Juan (IS) with 1.7%.

It is the first time that the left has carried out such a widespread and successful election campaign in the whole country, while, on other occasions, other groups of the left got big numbers, but they were limited to the Province of Buenos Aires, the Capital, or some province of the interior.

The achievement of the Left and Workers’ Front is not only that of having established itself as the predominant formation of the left, but that of having extended the defense of the workers’ socialist program and the need to build a workers’ political alternative from Jujuy to Patagonia.

Translated by Yosef M.