Senate Greek politics thread

Someone yelling my name?

 

Interesting fact of the day. For the first time in 92 years, there will be no one from the Papandreou family in the Greek parliament. Grandfather George Papandreou Sr was first elected in 1923. Oh, and he was a prime minister of Greece, like his son and grandson.

 

Here they are: father Georgios, son Andreas and grandson George

 

They definitely won, but we won't know by how many seats in parliament until the very last vote is counted. Right now they have secured 149 seats, but the results from the big cities are still coming in.

 

A bit of economic context from Paul Krugman.

Gee, unemployment at 28%. Can't for the life of me understand why Greeks would vote for the opposition.

 

The mystery to me is that, with 28% unemployment, 60% youth unemployment, 30% of households under the poverty line, etc etc, there are still 1.7 million Greeks who voted for New Democracy. Go figure.

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So. I woke up to some good news and some bad news today.

The good news is that SYRIZA most definitely won this election, with 36.34% to ND's 27.81%. We are therefore officially becoming a socialist paradise and proof of it is that there's an absolutely glorious sunshine outside.

The bad news is that this translates into only 149 seats in parliament, i.e. 2 seats short of a majority. This means that SYRIZA will have to form a coalition with someone. Here are the options:

• ND and PASOK are out of the question since they're the "memorandum forces"
• Golden Dawn are out of the question because they're Nazis.
• The Communist Party refuse to collaborate with SYRIZA (they see them as a Trojan horse of the bourgeoisie that will delay the revolution.)
• To Potami has been presented by international media as a likely partner for SYRIZA, but I don't quite get why. Potami don't have a clear political identity -- it's a party that was founded less than a year ago and they don't even have a programme -- but the one thing we know about them is that they're pro-austerity. So I can't see SYRIZA relying on them to push stuff through parliament.

That leaves... (drumroll)... Independent Greeks, a populist, nationalist, anti-austerity party who got 13 seats in parliament yesterday, and the news just fell that Tsipras and Kammenos (the Indep Greek chairman) just came to an agreement for a coalition government. Now I'm not happy with that AT ALL because, other than being against austerity, Independent Greeks aren't quite my cup of tea: they're xenophobic, homophobic and antisemitic (!), their people belong to the traditional, corrupt political scene and their leader is a loony who believes that the exhaust trails planes leave in the sky are evidence that Greece's enemies (including, but not limited to: the government, the Turks, the Americans, the Jews, the Freemasons) are spraying us with toxic substances to make us stupid (I kid you not!) So how SYRIZA is supposed to govern with these people I don't know, and by their very nature these are people who should not be in government by any civilized standards.
The thing though is that no one wants to go for repeat elections right now. Not only would that entail a lot of instability for Greece and for Europe, but it also means something very ugly domestically. The process now is that the president of the republic will ask the largest party to form a government. If that fails, the mandate goes to the second largest party, and then to the third. The second largest party, New Democracy, cannot gather a 151 MPs coalition to support a government, and the third largest party is Golden Dawn, a.k.a the Nazis. The latter of course could certainly not form a coalition, but no one wants to live through the moment when they will be mandated to form a government.
So as I see it there are three possible scenarios:

• The SYRIZA/Independent Greeks coalition will collapse under its contradictions in a few months and we will have new elections. If they have managed to achieve some of the things they promised (renegotiating with the troika, raising the minimum wage, doing something about tax evasion by the rich) SYRIZA will come out stronger and have a straight majority. If not, well, God help us.
• MPs will defect from other parties (To Potami, PASOK, possibly the Communist Party) over the coming few months and join SYRIZA, who will thus secure a straight majority. This is the most likely scenario in my opinion.
• SYRIZA will run their coalition with an iron fist and bring to parliament bills that Independent Greeks disagree with, about e.g. immigration, same-sex marriage or the separation of the Church and State, counting on third parties to support those bills. Independent Greeks would be able to vote against those bills without withdrawing their vote of confidence to the government. Withdrawing their vote of confidence would mean causing elections, and in this political atmosphere that would be a very risky political move. I doubt however that SYRIZA are coherent enough as a political force to run this type of show.

That was the news of the day after the elections. Apparently Tsipras will be sworn in as prime this afternoon -- he is meeting with the Archbishop at 2:30 pm to find out about the procedure for a non-religious oath, which is a first for Greece. All in all this is a historical day, so I'll enjoy it while I can.

 

Whatever happens, the EU in its current form is dead.

• Podemos definitely will become the official opposition in Spain, might even win the General Election this year
• Italy's Five Star Movement will also be strengthen by Syriza's victory.

Either member states are given some control back or risk a potential break up of the Euro and European Union. France, Britain and Germany all have rising anti-EU parties now, so the problem is not confined to Greece.

 

I don't know if he'll fill his pockets and I'm 100% sure there will be no Grexit, but the guy he chose for Finance Minister (economist Yanis Varoufakis) is a pretty good indication that he's not softening anything in the near future. Heck, I might even start watching Eurogroup meetings on TV for fun

 

I believe it was Yanis Varoufakis last night, who told the out going govt to inform Berlin "the deal was dead".

So yeah; Syriza aren't backing down. And rightly so. I suspect many within the Communist Party will jump ship, helping Syriza achieve an out right majority (wouldn't be surprised if the party starts lobbying MPs on the left for defections behind the scenes)

 

Hard to see how a Syriza/Independent coalition can last very long.

 

Let's see how Podemos fares. Surveys seem to change from day to day, from first to second political force in the country.

 

They will stay together until the debt is forgiven and the EU gives into some of their demands

 

Tsipras was sworn in minutes ago -- with a CIVIL OATH instead of a religious one. It's the first time in Greek history. Also, he wasn't wearing a tie. I can almost forgive him for Independent Greeks just for that

 

Now the fun begins...

 

I don't know much about Independent Greeks. I've seen described as anything from moderate-right nationalists to social-democrats. What's your take on them?

 

Racist, homophobic, antisemitic loonies whose only saving grace is to oppose austerity. I am not happy, not happy AT ALL, to see them in the government. They belong somewhere in the middle ages and I feel that it's dangerous to work with them in the long term because it gives legitimacy to their ideas. It's like Podemos going in a coalition with UKIP. But the fact that they are the one and only possible coalition partner for SYRIZA speaks volumes about how totally screwed up the political scene is in this country.

 

Far-right, conspiracy theorists and all round lunatics. Their leader believes Jews don't pay taxes and chemicals are being sprayed in the air (chemtrail conspiracy) to kill off Greeks, by the ECB.

 

I don't understand. Anyone who doesn't belong to a political party in Greece is bigoted?

 

what

 

Chyntuck well, the Independent Greeks are xenophobic, homophobic, and anti-semitic...but at least they're not NAZIS.