The manifesto of the Communist Party of Luxembourg (KPL) for the upcoming municipal council elections scheduled on June 11 promises interventions to ensure dignified housing and social rights and focuses on peace. On May 16, the KPL stated that its manifesto offers alternatives and a program to ensure that municipalities actually belong to the inhabitants. The election manifesto was finalized at the party’s national conference held in Lasauvage on May 13. KPL has fielded candidates for the municipal councils of Esch-sur-Alzette (List 5), Rümelingen (List 5), and Differdange (List 6).
The manifesto includes promises such as: (1) a solution to the housing problem, above all through concrete measures to build housing under socially just conditions, (2) democratic changes in the municipalities and concrete proposals on the competencies of the municipal councils, (3) improvement of medical care, (4) opposition to tax increases and privatization of municipal property, (5) concrete measures to create jobs and solve social problems of people with low and medium incomes, (6) democratic and socially just schools in which the right to education is fully enforced for all, (7) rights for all young people, real equality for women, and the right to a dignified life even in old age, (8) culture and sport to not be treated as a luxury for residents, (9) protection of the climate and a healthy environment and priority for public transport, and (10) a just peace in Ukraine through the immediate start of negotiations without preconditions and the cessation of all arms deliveries.
While Luxembourg is a small country with a representative democracy headed by a constitutional monarch, it actively participates in the NATO maneuvers in Europe. Housing prices have been rising in Luxembourg over the past few years. Housing rights groups, the KPL, and the leftist Dei Lenk have organized numerous mobilizations demanding affordable and dignified housing in the country. Trade unions including the Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation (OGBL) have also protested against the spike in attacks on workers’ rights.
Instead of responding to the people’s issues, the incumbent coalition government comprising the Democratic Party (DP), the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP), and the Greens has provided €75 million (US$ 81.47 million) in military aid to Ukraine last year, including ammunition, anti-tank weapons, multiple rocket launcher missiles, UAVs, etc. The KPL has organized protests against the government’s complicity in escalating the war in Ukraine.
Elections are set to take place for the governing councils of 100 communes which are of the status of municipalities on June 11. In the last elections held in 2017, the Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) and the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP) emerged as the top winners. The general elections for Luxembourg’s 60-seat Chamber of Deputies are scheduled for October 8, 2023. Currently, the KPL has representation only in a couple of municipalities, while Dei Lenk (The Left) has elected members in eight municipalities and two representatives in the Chamber of Deputies.
