Left front

Who are Jeremy Corbin and Bernie Sanders, who are visited to the leaders of the Labor and Democrats

In the UK, September 12, the results of the vote for the new leader of the Labor Party will be summed up, in the USA the preparations for the elections of the unified candidate from the Democrats are in full swing. And there and there, extremely unexpected candidates are now leading in polls: supporters of the Laborists see their leader of the left -wing views of Jeremy Corbin, and the American socialist Bernie Sanders unexpectedly began to overtake the obvious, seemingly candidate from the Democrats Hillary Clinton. Medusa tells who Sanders and Korbin are.

Jeremy Corbin: Nationalization, friendship with Hamas and exit from NATO

Korbin has been elected to the British parliament from the London constituency of North Izlington and the Labor Party since 1983. Until recently, Korbin was not too famous for the general public - such an inconspicuous deputy from the people with quite radical even for the Labor with left -wing views. During the scandal with the expenses of people's representatives in 2009, he turned out to be the cheapest member of the parliament for taxpayers.

In June 2015, after an unpleasant failure for the Labor in the May elections to the Parliament, Korbin, by chance, was among the candidates for leadership in his party. Shortly before the end of the nomination, one of the candidates refused to claim this post, and Korbina was supported for the sake of diversity - so that there was someone to choose from. The bearded Corbin suddenly ended up in the field of view of the media and began to talk about his views.

Korbina can be called antipode Tony Blair and the entire establishment of the Labor Party. He sharply condemns the war in Iraq (and wants to send Blair under the tribunal for her), his position in Ukraine largely coincides with the Russian, thanks to which Korbin has already become a star on RT, he considers Hezbollah and Hamas “friends”, wants to withdraw the United Kingdom from NATO and deprive the country of the nuclear arsenal. Korbin proposes to limit the level of rent in London, make free colleges, nationalize railways and energy companies, overlap rich taxes and much more. The most important thing: Korbin is a tough opponent of saving measures conducted by the current Prime Minister David Cameron.

Quite unexpectedly, such a summons liked the supporters of the Labor, and Korbin still, less than a month before the end of the party’s leader, in many surveys, confidently bypasses the former Minister of Health Andrew Bernham, who was considered the most likely leader of the Labor Party. The success of Korbin attracted the unprecedented interest of the media to such a boring thing as the election of the party leader.

The top of the Labor Party is almost unanimous in the assessment of Korbin and calls his possible election of catastrophe for the political movement. According to the establishment of the Labor, Korbin will make the party “unknown” and turn away from it adherents of more moderate views. The Labor has already lost a lot of votes thanks to the socialist views of the previous leader - the “Red Ed” of the miliband.

Bernie Sanders: Scandinavian socialism, taxes for the rich, education for all

Even before Hillary Clinton in April 2015 announced the nomination to the US presidency, she was considered the most likely winner of democratic primaries. Clinton already has experience and the political struggle for the nomination (before the 2008 elections, she lost only to the future - and now the departing - US President Barack Obama), and experience in the government as a Secretary of State. Senator from the state of Vermont Bernie Sanders was called Clinton's possible opponents, but no one seriously made a bet on him.

Sanders positions himself as a “people's candidate” and relies exclusively on individual donations, and not money from committees in support of the candidate, where corporations have the right to transfer funds. Sanders regularly collects impressive crowds of supporters during trips to the regions and, moreover, is extremely active in social media-he even held a popular series of questions-answers to Reddit.

His ideas are quite radical for American realities - Sanders is a supporter of the Scandinavian model of public administration with a socialist bias. So, the senator advocates reducing the cost of higher education at least twice and for reducing bets on student loans, offers to divide large banks and force the Fed to focus on supporting medium and small businesses. Sanders wants to increase taxes for wealthy ones (for the richest two percent of the US inhabitants almost double), and facilitate the tax burden for the middle class. Unlike Clinton, Sanders does not try to like the supporters of the Democrats at once, and first of all is not going to like the rich representatives of her. Moreover, Sanders directly says that the government should serve the whole nation, and not just wealthy sponsors. All this does it, in the words of the VOX publication, "President of the Internet."

On August 12, one of the polls in New Gepshire-the first state, where the primaries will be held in 2016, gave Sanders 44 percent of votes on a preliminary vote among the supporters of the Democrats. Hillary Clinton received only 37 percent. A few months to the primaries, and Sanders has enough problems: for example, he had disagreements with fighters against a police violence against blacks. But after all, Donald Trump at first, no one seriously perceived, and he has been leading in polls by the Republicans for a week.

Pavel Borisov

Riga