By George Bao Aug. 15, 2016
LOS ANGELES — Gloria La Riva, a socialist, has won the Peace and Freedom Party’s presidential nomination and Dennis Banks was chosen as her running mate to appear on the California ballot for the November 2016 General Election.
La Riva won the nomination at the Peace and Freedom (PFP) convention on August 13, chosen from an all-woman slate, a U.S. political first. 56 of the 80 delegates cast their vote for La Riva, La Riva’s office announced Monday.
La Riva and Banks will now appear as the Peace and Freedom candidates representing a socialist platform on the California ballot.
Commenting on the victory, La Riva said: “Having a socialist option on the ballot of the most populous state in the United States is tremendous. Across the state there are millions of workers and their families who face unemployment, poverty, racism, deportations and police brutality, inherent symptoms of the capitalist society we live in.
“We call for cancellation of all student debt, for the abolition of health insurance companies and for free healthcare for all, an end to evictions, full rights for undocumented people, an end to fracking and for prosecution of corporate polluters, for prosecution of police who abuse and kill, for an end to all U.S. wars and occupation.”
La Riva continued: “Our platform will resonate among working-class and poor people in California. We will reach every corner of the state, to universities, to every community, the workplaces and the fields.”
Gloria La Riva was the 2008 presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
In 1994 and 1998, La Riva was Peace & Freedom Party’s candidate for governor of California. She is president of the Typographical Sector, Media Workers Union, Local 39521, CWA.
La Riva is a labor, community, and anti-war activist based in San Francisco. She has also been a key organizer of many mass demonstrations opposing U.S. war and occupation in Central America, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, and the former Yugoslavia, among many others.
Since the two major parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have nominated deeply unpopular candidates, third-party candidates are drawing nearly unprecedented amounts of attention in this year’s presidential election.
Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, is running on the Libertarian ticket, and Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein are leading the pack of third-party candidates in the polls. There are a dozen more independent candidates to be put on this year’s presidential election ballot, but the chance seemed rare for any of them.