Chicago’s aldermanic campaign season is officially launching this week, with a record number of grassroots candidates surfacing across the city to challenge some of Chicago’s incumbents. In Chicago’s 25th Ward, Socialist Jorge Mújica is challenging incumbent Alderman Danny Solis. Mújica held a press conference this week to mark the beginning of a concerted effort by the Mújica campaign to hit the streets in the coming weeks to earn him a slot on the 2015 ballot and build support for his independent candidacy.

Mújica supports a $15-an-hour minimum wage in Chicago, opposes public school privatization and neighborhood school closures, supports legislative steps to end wage theft for low and middle-income workers, and opposes local development that creates displacement and undercuts affordable housing in the ward. The campaign seeks to build a people-powered movement for workers’ and immigrant rights.

“Chicago’s Democratic Party insiders represent elite interests that work directly against the needs of our residents — including corporate education profiteers, politically connected real estate developers, and poverty-wage employers. We need to create a real alternative to both the Democratic and Republican parties: a socialist alternative, committed to putting people before profits and challenging the growing income inequality that entrenched insiders like Solis embrace.”