|
|
|
|
|
Citizens Electoral CouncilThe Citizens Electoral Council of Australia (CEC) is a minor political party in Australia. It is controlled by Australian supporters of Lyndon LaRouche, an American political activist frequently accused of being a cult leader, a fascist and an anti-Semite. LaRouche and the CEC deny these charges. The CEC was originally established as an electoral front for the Australian League of Rights, a extreme right-wing group led by Eric Butler. In about 1996 the CEC was taken over by supporters of LaRouche, and League of Rights publications now regularly warn their readers to avoid it. The CEC leader is National Secretary and National Treasurer Craig Isherwood of Melbourne, who has been a CEC election candidate three times. Other members of the Isherwood family are also prominent in the CEC. Noelene Isherwood is the party's National Chairman. As is the case with LaRouche's political organisations in the United States, the CEC's policies are difficult to categorise. Some, such as "the establishment of a National Bank and State Banks to provide loans at 2% or less to agriculture (family farms), industry and for infrastructure development" are traditional policies of the left in Australia, now abandoned by the Australian Labor Party. Others, such as "the repeal of all Federal and State anti-union legislation passed over the past several years, beginning with the Federal 1996 Workplace Relations Act," are shared with all parties of the left. The only prominent CEC policy associated with the right is "a real war on drugs." In its campaign literature, the CEC associates itself with the tradition of such Australian figures as the Rev. John Dunmore Lang, King O'Malley, William Guthrie Spence, Frank Anstey, Daniel Deniehy, Jack Lang, Ben Chifley and John Curtin, and with the bygone tradition of the earlier Australian Labor Party http://www.cecaust.com.au/main.asp?sub=mobilisations/natmobe&id=flyer.html. Critics of the CEC maintain that these policies are a populist front for the CEC's real objective, which is the promotion of what are alleged to be the conspiracy theories of Lyndon LaRouche (see Political views of Lyndon LaRouche). Some Jewish organisations maintain that these theories are a coded version of traditional anti-Semitic theories such as those expounded in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Anti-Defamation Commission of the Australian branch of B'nai B'rith (a similar body to the Anti-Defamation League in the United States) closely monitors CEC activities, which it believes conceal an anti-Semitic agenda. The CEC's counter-attack on the ADC suggests some of its real beliefs. In 1999 a CEC-linked website described the ADC "as a front for Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, the ruling body of the British Commonwealth." (The British Privy Council is a purely ceremonial body which no longer has constitutional connection with Australia or the Commonwealth.) The CEC is a registered political party under the Australian Electoral Act. At the 2001 federal election its candidates polled extremely low totals. In the New South Wales Senate elections, for example, the CEC ticket polled 2,370 votes out of 3.8 million votes cast. The party fielded candidates for the Senate and most House of Representatives seats at the 2004 federal election. In some seats it distributed glossy full-colour pamphlets setting out its views, suggesting that the party has access to sources of finance greater than its small electoral base would suggest. Australian Electoral Commission records indicate that the CEC successfully raised several million dollars since 2001. Despite this, it again polled extremely low totals. The day after the election preliminary figures showed that the CEC had 34,177 votes, or 0.35 percent of the national vote, in the House of Representatives. Out of the 95 electorates in which they were represented, the CEC came last in 80 electorates. External links
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|