Green is the New Left

Green is the New Left

By: Erreh Svaia

“The Green Party is no longer the alternative, the Green Party is the imperative.”

Rosa Clemente 

We saw it coming in the southern part of Europe, we saw the Left-Wing radical party SYRIZA failing miserably to fulfill all its big campaign promises, in the end, “radical” Greek “Hugo Chávez” Alexis Tsipras, failed in delivering all that he promised as a candidate and when Greece seemed to put in peril the whole European Union, the promised change never arrived and Tsipras and SYRIZA proved that they were nothing more than just a traditional political party (and Tsipras a mediocre negotiator), even a couple of years after Tsipras assumed as Greece Prime Minister, the end of austerity as he promised never came true, in fact, Greece is still suffering after years of corruption and after years of keeping an unsustainable welfare state with more than half of the population in the country depending directly on the government, even Marxist finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was thrown out of the government and its impossibility to reach its initial goals.

In Spain neither “Neo Chavistas” Podemos (with leader Pablo Iglesias, a close ally of Tsipras) nor social democrats PSOE could seize power on elections day, the PSOE froze Spanish politics for almost a year and couldn’t build a ruling coalition, the PSOE was shamefully defeated by conservative right wingers Popular Party, while Podemos also showed its intransigence and lack of skills to build a coalition, the messianic syndrome, they inherited by their idolized Hugo Chávez (Podemos wasn’t able to deny the accusations of being financially aided by the “Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela) didn’t let them get along in successful alliance with other left wing parties (they only managed to associate with a  radical communist party that only helped scare more voters), leaving Podemos weakened after the process and more divided than ever.

  

In France, in an historical event, president Francois Hollande announced that he was not going to compete for a new presidential period, Hollande Socialist Party became a big deception for the French people after labor reforms were pushed forward, what Hollande was trying to do was giving a dose of fresh air to France´s economy, but the reforms were seen not only as the dismantling of the country´s welfare state, but as submission towards the European Union, Prime Minister Manuel Vals was also rejected by the population and by his own party, who elected a more radical option, Benoit Hamon, who despite being a more stronger candidate looks like he won’t be able to  overcome his party lack of luck.  

In Austria, the far-right leader of the anti-immigrant Freedom Party, Norbert Hofer looked as the man to become the first far right candidate to led a country, in election day the polls indicated he had a big chance, but he was narrowly defeated by Green Party candidate Alexander van der Bellen, a sign that started to show that the left, as predicted by legendary Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and legendary German neo Marxists The Frankfurt School, was about to mutate into something else, as Green Parties, which were initially founded in the 70s, started to become a new form of left wing, closer to the young population and pushing forward  different type of agenda that included obviously green politics, internationalism, social justice, non-violence, pro EU,  refugee friendly and environmentalism, getting closer and revitalizing social democracy in a way traditional left wing parties didn’t seem fit to do, even losing they hardcore base of proletariat population, who started to lean towards the far right, along angry and economically affected middle class, as if that wasn’t enough Bellen tight victory was objected, and new elections were announced, surprisingly this time Bellen crushed with an even wider margin Hofer, confirming that not only the Green Parties were becoming stronger, but that Green was the New Left, one that looked stronger enough to stop the rising tide of National Populism, let´s not forget that also, in the USA, Green Party candidate Jill Stein managed to draw big attention.

A couple of weeks ago we saw the reinforcement of this observation, as Netherlands´ Green Party candidate 30 years old Jesse Klaver managed to increase in an impressive way the number of seats for his party in the Parliament, while media favorite, the xenophobic populist Geert Wilder performed even worse than in his previous election, positioning Green Parties no only as the young people new favorite option, but a clue in the defeat of xenophobic populist parties, and a way to counter the movement of  Europe governments towards the right, as in the case of German chancellor Angela Merkel, who in order to prepare for the battle against the AfD and their far right histrionics, reinforced her position in the right wing, only to be caught out of balance by rising star Martin Schulz, who seems to be the only candidate in European social democracy, to win an election in a convincing way, and mirroring the successful left wing administration in Portugal, who also have managed to evade radical populist politics. 

In México, we have a very unsuccessful and shameful attempt at having a Green Party, the Partido Verde which never fulfilled its initial promises, and has become a bit of a joke, a right-wing populist satellite party to the corrupt PRI, "Verde or Green" just by name, but never in true ideology, which seems to be open for other "lite" left wing minor parties like Movimiento Ciudadano whose lack of strong ideology makes them apt to adopt this new type of leftism to seize the opportunity and renew its decaying supposed social democratic leanings.