6 June 1997
The SACP notes with great satisfaction the outstanding achievement of the French left parties in yesterday's second round of national assembly elections. In particular , we are heartened by the successes of the French Communist Party which in the face of unremitting anti-communist propaganda , has greatly increased its parliamentary presence. the French Communist Party is now likely to constitute part of the Left government.
These French legislative elections, the labour Party land-slide in the UK on May 1st, and the earlier Italian elections, all point to an important international trend. In the heart-lands of capitalism, electorates are increasingly rejecting the anti-people, pro-capitalist austerity of neo-liberalism.
If, as South Africans, we have to forge our own way, then so be it. But this looks less and less like the reality of our times. 1997 is not 1990. those, in our own county, who, constantly portray the reconstruction and development objectives of ANC led alliance as "hopelessly out of touch" with global trends, are themselves lost in a nostalgia for the passing era of Thatcherism and Reagonomics.
Issued: SACP HQ