2013 Election Special: Interview with DUA candidate, Petro Symonenko

[President Costava]

ARSTOTZKA STATE TV ANCHORMAN: Hello and welcome to the 2013 Election Special with Petro Symonenko, candidate of the left wing Democratic Union of Arstotzka. Can I ask you how and why you became involved in politics?

 

PETRO SYMONENKO: It was back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The cold war was going on. All sorts of wars were going on. The alternative to the capitalist system helped Arstotzka to prosper. I was involved with that and I was a trade union representative. It seemed the communists were the only ones who had the answers to the questions I was asking. I joined the Communist Party of Arstotzka in 1982.

 

ARSTOTZKA STATE TV ANCHORMAN: But Arstotzka is a free country, and many despise the totalitarian past of our nation. So can you describe the over-arching aims of your party and its revolutionary aims?

 

PETRO SYMONENKO: We find capitalism to be completely wasteful. The things that Marx said in the latest credit crunch have been found to be completely true. Communist economists had been predicting the consequences of capitalism in Arstotzka for about a decade: unemployment, poverty and crime. We knew it was going to happen and the worst is not yet over. Our aims are complete transformation of society. The economy belongs to the people, not the banks.That means we are going to need a flowering of trade unionism and activity to fight for what we’ve got and to get more. We need tenants movements. We need the pensioners to be active. There would be no room for the Nationalist Party for instance. But we still want political parties and democracy and elections.

 

ARSTOTZKA STATE TV ANCHORMAN: Arstotzka is a parliamentary republic, how can you say there will be no room for the Nationalist Party, and yet support democracy and elections? And what do you make of what the other parties are offering the people this time around?

 

PETRO SYMONENKO: I saw the Nationalists election manifesto and I thought: you hypocrites. I think a participative collective would terrify the so called "nationalists".

 

ARSTOTZKA STATE TV ANCHORMAN: When I interviewed the National Party candidate he said he will cut all ties with our communist past.

 

PETRO SYMONENKO: The reaction to us shows we are understood to be serious. If there was a communist majority in the People's Assembly I don’t think the capitalists would be happy.

 

ARSTOTZKA STATE TV ANCHORMAN: Why would anyone vote for a candidate who advocates the return to a system that oppressed Arstotzka for almost 60 years?

 

SPETRO SYMONENKO: tanding in an election is part of a process of educating people as to what we believe in. This election gives us a chance to have a leaflet delivered to thousands homes and they will either throw that away or read it. If they agree with what it says, if it touches them, they will have to consider: am I going to vote for somebody to keep somebody else out or am I going to vote for this, which happens to answer the questions I have been asking? I'm sure the people of Arstotzka will do the right thing. Glory to Arstotzka.

 

ARSTOTZKA STATE TV ANCHORMAN: Thank you for being with us on the 2013 Election Special, Mr Symonenko. Glory to Arstotzka. 

Edited August 31, 2013 by President Costava