No to repression and intimidation!
No to legislative elections!
For the election of a sovereign constituent assembly!
Repression and parliamentary elections are not a solution!
By creating a climate of terror, repressing Hirak’s peaceful demonstrations and muzzling all liberty of expression, the de facto power hopes to impose the continuation of the authoritarian and anti-social liberal regime, in particular by forcing the bar to impose June 12 legislative elections. Thus, since the beginning of the so-called election campaign, more than a thousand police controls and more than two hundred arrests of young Hirak activists, political activists, journalists and lawyers have been recorded in the last three weeks. This escalation, for which hundreds of thousands of agents of the repressive forces have been mobilized, comes on the heels of the strikes that affected the health sector, the post office, Eniem (household appliances), the Ministry of Commerce, the tax administration, as well as the large national strikes of civil protection workers and all the national educational bodies, whose street demonstrations have been violently repressed since the beginning of April. In addition, a campaign of intimidation through arrests and questioning of political leaders (RCD, MDS, FFS) and legal proceedings (UCP, PST) has been orchestrated to gag opposition political parties, including those that make up the Pact for a Democratic Alternative -PAD- since June 2019, demanding a democratic transition through the establishment of a popular constituent process. In addition, cultural and social associations, such as SOS Bab El Oued and RAJ, are repressed and threatened with dissolution.
The PST is a democratic, anti-liberal and anti-imperialist voice!
In this context of unprecedented repression for almost thirty years, and under the pretext of the delay in holding our congress and renewing our national organs, the Minister of the Interior took legal steps in summary proceedings before the State Council to temporarily suspend the PST and close its premises. However, the extraordinary political and health situations our country has experienced in recent years, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the enactment of the new constitution establishing the declaratory regime, effectively repealing the previous legal provisions, must be taken into account by the administration. By disregarding the organizational procedures for law enforcement that the PST has adopted, including holding an extraordinary congress and renewing its national bodies within the insufficient 15-day period granted to it, the Interior Minister is abusing his power and deliberately contradicting paragraph 2 of Article 67 of Law 12-04 on political parties. We hope that the Council of State will take into account the arguments and the undisputed documents submitted by our party.
But, as you all know, this is not about organizational or legal problems. In reality, they want to make us pay for our political positions, in particular our rejection of the June 12, 2021 legislative elections and our commitment to Hirak and to democratic and social struggles. In fact, the PST is committed not only to the struggle against authoritarianism and for democratic and trade union freedoms, but also to the anti-capitalist struggle, against liberal economic policies and against imperialist domination over our country. The PST is bothersome because of its political commitment against the oligarchies and private employers who, while taking advantage of public financial facilities and recurring tax exemptions, provide no meaningful counterpart and establish slave labor relations. As the Interior Minister should know, they prohibit union freedoms, unfairly dismiss workers, impose miserable wages, often fail to declare workers to social security, and often fail to pay their taxes. The PST is disturbing because of its denunciation of the unfair agreements signed with the EU and the submission of our country to the multinationals that plunder our wealth and that can count today on the intervention of the ANP outside our borders. The PST is disturbing because of its nearly half-century long struggle for the democratic and social rights of workers and the unemployed, against the oppression of women and youth, for identity claims and for the recognition of Tamazight, alongside poor peasants and all the dispossessed.
Let us defend our democratic and social rights and freedoms!
The denial of democratic freedoms and the multi-party system in our country is a serious deviation. It runs counter to the democratic aspirations expressed more than two years ago by popular Hirak and the millions of Algerian men and women who initiated the revolutionary process of February 22, 2019. It is a reminder once again that the regime, as well as the imperialist-dominated “Algerian bourgeoisie,” cannot accomplish the national democratic tasks or accommodate the few formal democratic rights and freedoms. For to impose their disastrous liberal policies at the economic and social levels, and to take what remains as the collective property of our people for the benefit of a minority of oligarchs, private bosses and multinationals, they need an authoritarian and liberticidal state. This drift is also a reminder, once again, that it is the people from below, especially the workers, youth and women who invented and inspired our formidable Hirak, and who now suffer repression and oppression, who naturally have an interest in defending democratic freedoms and rights in order to continue the struggle to build the indispensable political balance of power that will enable the long-awaited democratic change that will come through the election of a sovereign Constituent Assembly that is genuinely representative of the democratic and social aspirations of our people.
The PST considers that the legitimacy of its struggle, which is naturally part of the continuity of the struggle of the Algerian people for its independence, its sovereignty and its social emancipation, cannot be subordinated to the granting of an administrative approval or authorization. However, our party will fight as always to defend our hard-won democratic gains, including the multi-party system and the right of citizens to freely found political associations and parties through a simple declaration and without any bureaucratic hindrance or political interference from the administration and public authorities. These democratic and trade union freedoms are still more than ever indispensable for workers, the unemployed, youth, women and all oppressed people.
The PST salutes and thanks all the organizations and personalities, nationally and internationally, as well as the citizens who continue to express their solidarity with our party.
The National Direction of the PST (Socialist Workers Party).
Algiers, June 07, 2021
