Gloria La Riva seeks Peace and Freedom nomination

The Party for Socialism and Liberation in California is hard at work on our 2008 electoral project. California is one of the very few states in the union that has an avowedly socialist party with ballot status, the Peace and Freedom Party.

Gloria La Riva, PSL presidential candidate, is seeking the Peace and Freedom nomination.

Barriers set up by the Democrats and Republicans force progressive candidates to jump through ever more complex hoops in California and the rest of the country. Gloria La Riva ran in the February Peace and Freedom primary in California and came in with a virtual tie for second place. The other candidates included environmental and consumer activist Ralph Nader, Brian Moore of the Socialist Party, and progressive former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

Gloria ran very vigorous campaigns for Governor in 1994 and 1998 as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate in California.

Peace and Freedom Party chooses their nominee at an August delegated convention, not through the primary vote. The PSL has been seeking to elect members of the Peace and Freedom Party county central committees around the state who support the La Riva candidacy. Elected members of county central committees will be the voting delegates at the PFP convention in August.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation is also running Nathalie Hrizi, a school teacher and PSL organizer for U.S. Congress in California’s 12th District, which includes the west side of San Francisco and almost all of San Mateo County. Lucilla Esguerra is running for the California State Assembly in District 48 in Los Angeles.

Hrizi and Esguerra will be on the ballot as Peace and Freedom party candidates in both the June primary and November general elections. PSL activists Stephen Hinze and Marylou Cabral are candidates for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

In the PSL’s continuing effort to secure Gloria La Riva’s nomination for President on the Peace and Freedom ballot in November, party members have circulated petitions in four counties in California. PSL members and friends worked many hours and drove many miles getting supporters to sign petitions necessary to obtain ballot status candidates for county central committees.

Since many of these elections are not contested, La Riva supporters will have a substantial representation at the August Peace and Freedom convention. If La Riva is able to secure the Peace and Freedom nomination in California, the opportunities to campaign for socialist and progressive solutions to the millions of poor and working people in the most populous and diverse U.S. state will be greatly expanded.

One of La Riva’s strongest arguments in seeking the Peace and Freedom nomination, is that a socialist party should have a candidate that will run a strong socialist campaign.