A socialist political party that was once part of the Workers World Party will be on the presidential ballot in New Mexico alongside the Democratic and Republican parties, NM Political Report confirmed.
The party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, is a far-left political party founded in 2014. The party has no elected officials in the United States, but gathered the requisite amount of signatures to make the ballot in New Mexico, the Secretary of State’s office confirmed Thursday.
“The Secretary of State’s office requires 2,564 signatures, but in only nine weeks our members and supporters collected 6,300 signatures, through entirely volunteer efforts,” New Mexico PSL organizer Chris Banks said in a statement.
The party will be able to submit a presidential nominee by September 13. Gloria La Riva, who was born in Albuquerque, is expected to be the party’s nominee this year.
“The federal government claims there is not enough to provide basic necessities for the people, yet there is never a debate over the annual military budget of at least $1 trillion for weapons and war,” La Riva said after the party announced she made the ballot in New Mexico. “This is why New Mexico suffers from such deep poverty, from the catastrophes of uranium and plutonium pollution. We will raise these critical issues that Trump and Clinton won’t touch.”
La Riva was the presidential candidate for PSL in 2008 and served as the “stand-in” candidate for Peta Lindsay in 2012; Lindsay was not old enough to be constitutionally allowed to be president.
The party isn’t likely to be one of the bigger minor parties on the ballot in New Mexico, and isn’t even the only minor party with a connection to New Mexico.
Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson is the Libertarian Party candidate for president and received 27,787 votes in New Mexico in 2012 and over 1.2 million votes nationwide.
PSL received 9,405 votes nationwide in 2012 while being on the ballot in 13 states and 6,821 votes nationwide in 2008.
The PSL blames capitalism for many of the ills throughout the world.
“Driven by an insatiable appetite for ever greater profits regardless of social cost, capitalism is on a collision course with the people of the world and the planet itself. Imperialist war; deepening unemployment and poverty; deteriorating health care, housing and education; racism; discrimination and violence based on gender and sexual orientation; environmental destruction—all are inevitable products of the capitalist system itself,” the party’s website says.
