MINNEAPOLIS — The Socialist Workers Party in Minnesota is organizing a concentrated two-week effort to get the party’s gubernatorial ticket on the ballot while taking its working-class program across the state. “We’re asking supporters from around the country to come and help us overcome the obstacles the state puts in the way of working-class parties getting on the ballot,” said Kevin Dwire, the SWP’s candidate for lieutenant governor.
Minnesota election law requires “minor” parties to collect 2,000 signatures between May 17 and 31. “We will send teams of campaigners all over the state, from the Iron Range to the Red River Valley to the meatpacking towns in the southern part of the state,” Dwire said. “We will campaign with the Socialist Workers Party program, the Militant and books by SWP leaders and other revolutionaries in big cities, small towns and rural areas.”
Campaigners will build solidarity with the striking coal miners at Warrior Met in Alabama and call for Russian troops to get out of Ukraine, as well as an end to U.S. sanctions, which hit the living conditions of fellow workers in Russia, making building working-class unity against Moscow’s invasion more challenging.
Gabrielle Prosser, the party’s candidate for governor, just returned from participating in the Havana International Book Fair and the giant May Day march in Cuba. “In 1959, Fidel Castro led workers and farmers to take political power,” Prosser told the Militant. “We continue to defend this living and fighting revolution. The revolutionary victory was only possible because of the mobilization of people in their millions to work toward changing their conditions and social relations.
“Our campaign says the only way forward for our class is to organize independently from the ruling class and their political parties,” she said. “We point to the example of the socialist revolution that was carried out by workers and farmers in Cuba.”
Volunteers are coming from Chicago and as far away as California and Georgia. Organizers of the effort say more help is needed. Contact a branch of the SWP near you if you would like to help. Funds are also needed to print campaign flyers and petitions, and for travel throughout the state and other expenses. For more information, contact the Minnesota SWP campaign at SWPMinneapolis@gmail.com.