Greek Parliamentary Election

[temper_tantrum]

They can't, they've thrown in the towel. S have 3 days now. Going to see the prez tomorrow.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Here is the info: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blo...ialists-greece-voters-austerity-live#block-17

It looks very likely that Greece will not now have a government

I wonder if the Generals will take the reins under the guise of a "government of the technocrats".

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The Golden Dawn leader apparently was quite pally with the 'Colonels' when he was in jail with them years ago and it sounds like half the Greek cops/security forces are already members of his party, so who knows ...

 

[youngian]

Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy disgusted that the greek people have been allowed a say in their own fate. They should leave that tricky stuff to the wise technorats and financial experts. (see above)

Was he that man on the R4 this morning going on about the stupid Greek people electing a bunch clowns and madmen?

The fact is many Greeks still don't understand why the banks have been recapitalised and put back on course, ie an expansionary growth strategy, is good for them but not for the Greek economy. They are not living in cuckoo land and have been squeezed again and again. Unlike Ireland they do not even have a decent enough welfare system to keep their heads above water. Many of the problems might of been the fault of the country's clientest Tammany Hall politics but the ECB/Merkel strategy is going nowhere.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

TIMELINE: This is what the next few days will look like.

• May 7-May 9: New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras seeks coalition government
• May 10-May 12: Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras tries his hand at building coalition if Samaras fails
• May 13- May 15: If both have failed, Pasok’s Evangelos Venizelos gets the mandate to start coalition talks
• May 16: President of the Republic invites leaders of the seven parties that have made it into parliament in final effort to cobble together coaltiion.
• May 16 or soon after: If that final effort fails, a caretaker government is appointed t o lead the country to elections.
• June 10: Is the earliest date that fresh elections can be held if all previous steps have failed.
• June 30: Deadline by which Greek parliament must approve €11.5 billion in further cutbacks to deal with expected budget gaps in 2013 and 2014 under its bailout plan agreed with the Troika of its international lenders

http://blogs.wsj.com/eurocrisis/2012/05/07/at-a-glance-what-happens-next-in-greece/

 

[ayatollah]

I seriously hope Syriza's Alexis Tsipras avoids any temptation he may have to try and pull together some ramshackle coalition to form a government.. at this stage of the struggle the LAST thing the Left needs is to be responsible for (or to be seen as responsible for by its electors) the pile of crap that is the straightjacketted Greek economy. To break out of this debt and austerity straightjacket will require radical measures , seizure of the wealth of the rich, seizure of foreign owned companies, repudiation of all foreign debt , leaving the Eurozone, etc.... FAR beyond the level of general radicalisation of the Greek working class at present. Better to let the crisis brew a bit longer, and hope for extra solidarity and help from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian workers as they eventually enter a more radicalised level of struggle too.

One things clear, if, Syriza DOES cobble together a Left government at this time.. it'll be a re-run of the Allende Government in 1974 in Chile before too long.

 

[frogwoman]

The international community will struggle to impose yet more austerity here when the cuts have been so comprehensively rejected by the majority of the Greek people.
"If the European south unites towards our German friends and in particular Chancellor Merkel, she has to realise that these austerity measures are not leading anywhere", says Konstantinos Mihalos, the president of the Greek Chamber of Commerce.
"These horizontal cuts that have been implemented over the past two-and-a-half years have brought us to a dead end. We need to stimulate the economy - you need stimulus, you need growth and we need to re-negotiate certain parts of the deal."
Perhaps that rethink will be aided by the election of France's new Socialist President, Francois Hollande. He is sceptical of austerity, favouring pro-growth policies instead - something conspicuously lacking in Greece and yet desperately needed.

Interesting ... From the BBC article on the elections here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17982101

 

[frogwoman]

http://xryshaygh[dot]wordpress.com

/books/

fucking hell. they're (golden dawn) selling books like "the turner diaries", "the protocols of the elders of zion" and "a thousand years of hitler" on their website. they're actually selling a book of hitler's speeches as well !! on their "about us" page from what i can gather from google translate they're going on about "the race and the nation" etc. they're not even trying to hide the fact they're nazis. fucking hell

 

[kebabking]

http://xryshaygh[dot]wordpress.com/books/

fucking hell. they're (golden dawn) selling books like "the turner diaries", "the protocols of the elders of zion" and "a thousand years of hitler" on their website. they're actually selling a book of hitler's speeches as well !! on their "about us" page from what i can gather from google translate they're going on about "the race and the nation" etc. they're not even trying to hide the fact they're nazis. fucking hell

you can imagine how this is going down in Germany - elected morons goose-stepping around and giving Nazi salutes while saying that Germany should back off with the nasty medicine and how immigrants should be put in work camps. regardless of the rights and wrongs of the lead up to this, if Angela Merkel 'gives in to the Greeks' she'd be strung up from the Berlin TV tower.

Greece just flushed themselves down the toilet - Germany wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire after electing Nazi's.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Der Spiegel is more understanding of the protest vote against austerity.

http://www.spiegel.de/international...t-austerity-in-sunday-elections-a-831678.html

 

[papageorgiou12]

Below is a link to an interesting compilation of "golden dawn"' Nazi propaganda from their publications. Unfortunately it is in Greek, but from the plentiful pictures you can get an idea of their glorification of the Nazis and their "Greek" collaborators during the WWII occupation.

http://jungle-report.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post.html

 

[Kaka Tim]

Greece just flushed themselves down the toilet - Germany wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire after electing Nazi's.

Its very much in germany's interests to keep the euro going - and default in greece will seriously exacebate the crises. Voters in france and greece (and potentailly Ireland) are calling Merkels (and the bankers) bluff. Making millions of ordinary people suffer economic misery to protect the profits of the hyper wealthy was never going to be pass any form of democratic test.

 

[frogwoman]

Here's an article that finally decided that the winners are the "ancestors" and continues with excruciating anguish for the honest (!) Struggle of German Nazis, the tragic loss of their soldiers and officers, about how unfairly treated them and the need for vindication them.

​

 

[ymu]

One things clear, if, Syriza DOES cobble together a Left government at this time.. it'll be a re-run of the Allende Government in 1974 in Chile before too long.

Yeah, as you say, a left and firmly anti-austerity govt in Greece will probably require a domino-effect to survive. If a coalition can be cobbled together, there must be a very high chance of at least a technocratic coup before (the surely inevitable) default is allowed to happen. If they hang on, Greek civil war with the neo-liberals funding the far right, and international isolation via sanctions (as happened to Argentina when they defaulted, and now again because they've taken back YPF).

If the eurozone collapses, or at least enough peripheral countries default with similarly-minded governments in power, they could follow the Bolivarian model - which has helped Argentina a great deal - and perhaps hang on.

Bloody times ahead, with a slim chance of light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[frogwoman]

 

[ymu]

you can imagine how this is going down in Germany - elected morons goose-stepping around and giving Nazi salutes while saying that Germany should back off with the nasty medicine and how immigrants should be put in work camps. regardless of the rights and wrongs of the lead up to this, if Angela Merkel 'gives in to the Greeks' she'd be strung up from the Berlin TV tower.

Greece just flushed themselves down the toilet - Germany wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire after electing Nazi's.

Oh fuck off. They got 7% of the vote, and Germany has its own neo-Nazi problem, which will likely be resurgent if Germany has to start paying for the domestic boom it created off the back of the euro by flooding the periphery with capital.

 

[frogwoman]

Oh fuck off. They got 7% of the vote, and Germany has its own neo-Nazi problem, which will likely be resurgent if Germany has to start paying for the domestic boom it created off the back of the euro by flooding the periphery with capital.

to be fair though i can sort of see his point and how this nazi stuff could play, ironically, with the more far-right and populist end of the german political spectrum.

 

[phildwyer]

The KKE sectarian position though immeasurably weakens the strength of the working class as the crisis of ruling class control in Greece spirals out of their control.

This is the point. I thought we'd passed the historical stage where Stalinists could bugger everything up, but evidently not.

 

[butchersapron]

to be fair though i can sort of see his point and how this nazi stuff could play, ironically, with the more far-right and populist end of the german political spectrum.

The Neo-mercantile fraction of global capital based in Germany and the German national states interests don't work on some moral code, they're not going to stop doing what they're doing because of nazis elected in a country that they're happily fleecing. This barely registers with them.

 

[frogwoman]

The Neo-mercantile fraction of global capital based in Germany and the German national states interests don't work on some moral code, they're not going to stop doing what they're doing because of nazis elected in a country that they're happily fleecing. This barely registers with them.

i know, my point was more to do with how they would use it for political point-scoring. "see, they deserve it really."

 

[frogwoman]

 

[London_Calling]

Pink speedos. That's all you need to know.

Relieved the Greek electorate have called it a day on this fiasco and effectively voted to leave the euro.

In the eurozone, that's now ten austerity-friendly governments that have fallen in a year and a bit.


Still a little early for a new reality but it's coming ...

 

[BigTom]

http://xryshaygh[dot]wordpress.com/books/

fucking hell. they're (golden dawn) selling books like "the turner diaries", "the protocols of the elders of zion" and "a thousand years of hitler" on their website. they're actually selling a book of hitler's speeches as well !! on their "about us" page from what i can gather from google translate they're going on about "the race and the nation" etc. they're not even trying to hide the fact they're nazis. fucking hell

fw, that link's not broken, you need to click the unlink button that looks like a broken chain to remove the link, or use the chain button to edit the link directly, it doesn't work to just change the text anymore in XF.

 

[phildwyer]

Relieved the Greek electorate have called it a day on this fiasco and effectively voted to leave the euro.

The Irish voted against it, and were just made to vote over and over again until they got it right.

 

[London_Calling]

It's the Irish way.

 

[frogwoman]

thanks should be done now

 

[Riklet]

According the the Groan these are Alexis Tsipras's conditions he is demanding, in order to form a government with either of the two main parties.

1) The immediate cancellation of all impending measures that will impoverish Greeks further, such as cuts to pensions and salaries.
2) The immediate cancellation of all impending measures that undermine fundamental workers' rights, such as the abolition of collective labor agreements.
3) The immediate abolition of a law granting MPs immunity from prosecution, reform of the electoral law and a general overhaul of the political system. According to Keep Talking Greece, that would include abolishing the 50-seat bonus for the party which wins the most seats.
4) An investigation into Greek banks, and the immediate publication of the audit performed on the Greek banking sector by BlackRock.
5) The setting up of an international auditing committee to investigate the causes of Greece's public deficit, with a moratorium on all debt servicing until the findings of the audit are published.

Would it really be such a tactical mistake for the anti-austerity/anti-capitalist left to try and form a government in this situation? Definitely doomed to failure? Better on the outside pissing in, hanging out with the KKE whilst they sit back and wait for Soviets to appear/the working class to "suffer sufficiently" that they are motivated.

I'm really not sure what I think tbh, but this seems a rather problematic way of seeing things, then again a "left" coalition government might end in disaster, tactical mistakes and technocrat/military rule...

 

[London_Calling]

LOL. Outrageous conditions!!1!

Surely has to be another election...

 

[ayatollah]

According the the Groan these are Alexis Tsipras's conditions he is demanding, in order to form a government with either of the two main parties.

1) The immediate cancellation of all impending measures that will impoverish Greeks further, such as cuts to pensions and salaries.
2) The immediate cancellation of all impending measures that undermine fundamental workers' rights, such as the abolition of collective labor agreements.
3) The immediate abolition of a law granting MPs immunity from prosecution, reform of the electoral law and a general overhaul of the political system. According to Keep Talking Greece, that would include abolishing the 50-seat bonus for the party which wins the most seats.
4) An investigation into Greek banks, and the immediate publication of the audit performed on the Greek banking sector by BlackRock.
5) The setting up of an international auditing committee to investigate the causes of Greece's public deficit, with a moratorium on all debt servicing until the findings of the audit are published.

Would it really be such a tactical mistake for the anti-austerity/anti-capitalist left to try and form a government in this situation? Definitely doomed to failure? Better on the outside pissing in, hanging out with the KKE whilst they sit back and wait for Soviets to appear/the working class to "suffer sufficiently" that they are motivated.

I'm really not sure what I think tbh, but this seems a rather problematic way of seeing things, then again a "left" coalition government might end in disaster, tactical mistakes and technocrat/military rule...

YES it WOULD be an absolutely DISASTROUS tactical move for Syriza to either form a coalition on these , undeniably EXCELLENT principles and conditions , OR be a part of a , for instance Pasok/ND coalition either. Why ? Simply because there is no conventional bourgeoise democratic way out of Greece's crisis. Taking over the reins of government by Syriza on this EXCELLENT programme WILL necessitate a direct confrontation with domestic and international capitalism . The Greek working class simply isn't ready for this level of struggle , and Syriza MUST wait for the level of struggle to rise a lot further in Italy, Spain and Portugal at least. If Syriza takes on the government role now, it and Greece, will be isolated and SMASHED, as an object lesson to everyone else. Timing and tactics are absolutely CRITICAl at this level of severity of class struggle.

 

[ymu]

Whilst that is true, they also have to consider whether they can afford to squander the momentum. Plus, there is a slim chance of their being allowed a managed exit from the Euro, in order to prevent a domino-effect.