[Click here to read the full analysis from our Puerto Rican comrades]
Last November, Puerto Rico experienced one of the most intense elections in its history as a left-wing independent alternative upended the dominance of the two traditional capitalist parties.
Like the mainland US, Puerto Ricans had faced a perpetual “ping pong” between two bourgeois parties backed by millions of corporate dollars. But a new electoral coalition, Alianza de País (Country Alliance), came second in the gubernatorial race—breaking the seemingly endless cycle of lesser-evil politics.
Against all odds, Alianza’s reformist candidate, Juan Dalmau, overcame a vicious “red scare” ad campaign and got nearly 33% of the over 1.1 million votes cast. The reactionary New Progressive Party (PNP) won with 39% of the vote, while the other rightwing gang, the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), came in an embarrassing third place with 21%.
A majority of Americans already reject both ruling-class parties, and want to transform the entire political and economic system. The electoral experience in Puerto Rico proves that it is possible to break with the bourgeois political duopoly—a necessary first step in the development of working-class political consciousness.
How do Puerto Rican elections work?
The US invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and has controlled the island ever since. As an “unincorporated territory” (read: colony), even the most basic formal democratic rights are severely restricted. All Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but they are not allowed to vote in general elections unless they reside on the mainland. They also don’t have representation in Congress, except for a symbolic, non-voting member of the House.
Puerto Ricans only get to vote for the governor, representatives in the island’s own bicameral legislature, and municipal positions such as mayors. Even then, the island’s budget is completely controlled by an unelected financial oversight board. First appointed by Obama in 2016, all its members are handpicked by the president.
Both historic bourgeois parties in Puerto Rico, the PNP and the PPD, defend this colonial capitalist system. They are not directly aligned with the Republicans or Democrats of the mainland, but vary in the flavor of colonial rule they prefer. The PNP wants Puerto Rico to become the 51st US state, whereas the PPD favors a continuation of the status quo with minor modifications.
How did Alianza emerge?
Battered by hurricanes and perpetually squeezed by the US, the island has faced decades of insurmountable debt, economic crises, and brutal austerity that have made life miserable for the working class majority.
Simmering anger exploded in 2019, when an insurrectionary mass movement brought down PNP Governor Ricky Rosselló. The movement demonstrated the power of mass workers’ struggle, but it lacked a clear program or political organization capable of challenging capitalism itself and providing a real alternative to Ricky and his cronies.
As the movement subsided, the anger found a political expression in the 2020 election. A new leftwing party, the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (Citizens’ Victory Movement), became the third most popular force practically overnight. The historic pro-independence party, the PIP, rose from the ashes, jumping from 2.1% in the previous election to 13.7%. These two parties formed Alianza in 2024. Meanwhile, the traditional parties of colonial capitalism have steadily declined year after year, falling from a combined vote of around 95% to 60% today.
In addition, a new Trade Union Coalition made up of over 25 labor unions put forward a program of demands for workers in the 2024 election. Both leaders and rank-and-file workers of the Coalition publicly supported Alianza. The jump from a trade union or narrow economic sphere to a political one represents an important turning point for Puerto Rican labor.
The RCI in Puerto Rico offered critical support to Alianza as a progressive and necessary step towards the development of independent, working-class political consciousness. Contrary to what the right-wing propaganda claims, Alianza is not anticapitalist, but it represented a real option for the workers to challenge the capitalist onslaught in the electoral arena. The party put forward a reformist program with a series of democratic demands, including: ending rampant government corruption; a public healthcare system; bringing the crumbling, privatized electricity grid back into public control; the removal of the unelected financial oversight board; and the right to self-determination for Puerto Ricans.
If implemented, such a program would clash against the narrow limits of colonial capitalism. This is precisely why it cannot be achieved solely through electoral means, but rather by the mobilization of the working class in the streets, workplaces, and schools. As our Puerto Rican comrades explained:
To end the exploitation of the working class in Puerto Rico—and internationally—it is not enough to have “good governance” or to “fight corruption”; we have to end capitalism, which is the source of all exploitation and oppression.
The party question in the US
What we are witnessing in Puerto Rico is the latest expression of a worldwide phenomenon.
To give just one example, Spain’s mass “Indignados Movement” in response to the 2008 world financial crisis led to the formation of a new left-reformist party in 2014, Podemos, which challenged the traditional two-party system and other pillars of rotten Spanish capitalism.
Economic crisis and austerity have provoked massive discontent in country after country, which in turn has led to political polarization and instability. From France, to Britain, Italy, Greece, Mexico, and beyond, we’ve seen the collapse of the “liberal center,” and the rise of new parties or more radical political figures promising a break with the status quo.
Lacking confidence in the working class or a revolutionary perspective, these new left-wing parties and leaders are chained to the sinking ship of capitalism. Powerless to carry out their reformist programs within the narrow limits of the system, right-wing populists gain ground in their stead. Radicalization to the left finds its mirror image on the right, as workers desperately try to find a way out of the economic impasse.
The US is no exception—as shown by the rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. In 2016 and again in 2020, Sanders had the support of millions of workers and youth as he promised a “political revolution against the billionaire class.” The Democratic Party couldn’t tolerate Sanders’s soft reformist program, and his cowardly capitulations—along with the union leadership’s subservience to bourgeois politicians—ceded the ground for Trump to tap into the class discontent in a distorted way through his reactionary demagogy.
Had Sanders broken with the capitalist Democratic Party and established an independent mass working-class or socialist party, this would have transformed the political landscape in the US. The development of such a party—even with a mild, reformist program—would be unquestionably progressive in that it would help the workers see themselves as a class with its own interests and party.
If an initiative of this kind began to gather momentum, the RCA would enthusiastically join this effort. The revolutionary communists would form one of many currents within the party, developing a dialog with the broader ranks to make the case for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism—for a workers’ government and the nationalization under workers’ control of the key economic levers—as the only way forward.
That is precisely the type of work our comrades are carrying out in Puerto Rico, and a possible scenario that communists in the mainland US must prepare for by building the Revolutionary Communists of America ahead of events.