A Political Establishment in Freefall: Greece Lurches to Left Amid Radical Austerity – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International
Posted by adminFeb 21
A Political Establishment in Freefall
Greece Lurches to Left Amid Radical Austerity
By Julia Amalia Heyer in Athens
A radical austerity drive has triggered the biggest political upheaval in Athens since the end of the military dictatorship in 1974. So far, it is leftist parties who have benefitted the most from the debt crisis. The deeply divided left, however, would likely be unable to form a stable coalition.
Alexis Tsipras walks up to the lectern like Elvis strutting onstage. But when he begins to speak, all traces of youthfulness and ease vanish from his face. The “foreign loan sharks” have one thing on their minds, he barks into the microphone: “the impoverishment of the Greek people and the sellout of our country!” He slams his fist down and continues his speech, his voice booming. The Europeans, he says, are pursuing only one goal: to bring about the end of the sovereign Greek nation. “We must prevent Greece from becoming a German protectorate once again,” Tsipras says, practically shouting by now. “We are not a German colony.”
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The crowd applauds loudly in the packed gymnasium in Peristeri, a suburb of Athens. The words “The Left’s Response in Greece” are written in bold letters on a banner on the wall behind the lectern. Tsipras, 37, wearing a black suit and a purple shirt, is the main speaker this evening.
It is cold and the room is unheated, but the will of the assembled crowd to wage resistance remains unbroken. They should be punished immediately, these European traitors, a man who looks to be about 60 hisses in the direction of the lectern. A female student is sitting next to him, and both are clapping enthusiastically.
Tsipras, the man with the harsh rhetoric, is the head of SYRIZA, or the Coalition of the Radical Left. According to the polls, he is currently the second-most popular Greek politician. Only Fotis Kouvelis, the chairman of the more moderate Democratic Left (DIMAR), is more popular than Tsipras.
A Country in Flux
There are many uncertainties in Greece today: whether the country can remain in the euro zone, whether the €130 billion ($171.8 billion) second bailout package will sufficiently reduce the insolvent country’s staggering debt load, and whether the Greeks will ever implement the reforms their international creditors are demanding of them. At the moment, only one thing seems predictable: that nothing will remain the same. “Everything is changing, and everything is frightening,” writes the newspaper Kathimerini.
Only with great difficulty was the transitional government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos able to commit last week to the reforms that the European Union, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had demanded — and its commitment came at a high political price. The nationalist right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) withdrew from the government, and the heads of the two large traditional parties, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the conservative Nea Dimokratia (ND), or New Democracy, saw 43 of their members resign or be expelled from their respective parties.
The lesson can be summed up with two words: “panta rhei,” or everything flows. No political commentary these days describes the situation in Greece as clearly as these words from ancient Greece.
The Divided Left
The political system is in its greatest turmoil since the end of the Greek military dictatorship in 1974. And the political establishment is in free fall.
According to surveys, the parties that benefit most from the crisis are those on the left, traditionally strong in Greece, which also include Tsipras’s SYRIZA coalition.
Public Issue, a polling firm, estimates SYRIZA’s approval rating at 12 percent, and that of Kouvelis’s Democratic Left at 18 percent. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the oldest party in the country, stands at 12.5 percent approval. Combining the approval ratings of these three leftist parties would theoretically yield 42.5 percent, enough to form a government, even without PASOK, the socialist governing party of former Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou. Since winning the 2009 election with 43.9 percent of the vote, PASOK has now dropped to an 8-percent approval rating — one of the biggest declines European election experts have ever seen.
Even if the pollsters say that the answers are changing more quickly than they can ask the questions, the trend is the same among all polls conducted by the major opinion research institutes: the two-party dominance of PASOK and ND, which have divided up the cabinet seats and perks for almost 40 years, is over. An election will be held in April, although the exact date has yet to be determined.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think that a united left could win the next election and ensure a stable parliament starting in the late summer. The Greek left is deeply divided.
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And now that the Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS party) has deserted the transitional government, Samaras also cannot hope for coalition partners on the right.
According to recent polls, the ultra-right Hrisi Avgi party (“Golden Dawn”) now stands a chance of surpassing the three-percent threshold to acquire seats in the new parliament. But the party would not be a viable coalition partner for Samaras.
The Golden Dawn fascists preach the “superiority of the white race and the Greek nation.” Greece’s prospects are bleak indeed.
Much more at the link. Inasmuchas Greece’s fiscal problems could bring down the entire world economy, Greece is worth watching. Also worth watching because things are playing out just about precisely along the lines of the formula Naomi Klein gives in her wonderful-horrible book, Shock Doctrine. If you haven’t read it, please do..I actually have only read about 1/3 of it — too gruesome, too gritty, too true. But I got enough of it to learn what the steps from here to iron-fisted fascism are. Watch Greece. Watch the U.S. as well.
