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Greek Parliamentary Election

I suppose everyone has already seen the video where a thug ordered the journalists to stand up out of respect for the leader as he entered the press conference.

Anyone have the latest on antifascist prospects in Greece? I wanna hear some good news.

I was at an anti-fash meet up at Victoria Square in Athens on Thursday which wasn't well advertised and was fairly short notice. At its peak it was around a 1000 strong. The square is at the center of a neighborhood that has a large immigrant population and there are often festivals set up to get links with the immigrant communities. Very positive. One of the main tasks is to get the immigrants involved (translated texts, meet ups, free food, legal/medical advice) and united. Stating the obvious, the immigrants aren't a homogenous group and there are many subgroup rivalries.

Also, within neighborhoods there are antifash gatherings and "neighborhood community organising" that try and work with the community. One of the reasons Golden Dawn received such a high vote is due to a lot of misinformation spread pre-election mainly playing down their nazi side. One taxi driver my friend spoke to mentioned that he was voting for the "anarchists". My friend questioned the driver and it turned out that he was voting for Golden Dawn....

The press conference you mentioned was a major fuck up from them and they alienated a lot of journalists. The recent polls show Golden Dawns percentage down. The opinion of the antifash I've chatted to is that this is most probable. Heres hoping that they receive less than the necessary 3% required to get seats in parliament.

With regards to attacks, the fash have become bolder and there are more attacks out in the open against immigrants. Two weeks ago there was an attack on a bar/club at Exarchia Square, an area were anti-authoritarians/anarchists etc. hang out. The anti fash have been doling out beatings too though. On their own they can be dealt with. The trouble comes when the police jump in and start providing protection.

There are also a number of court cases pending against the golden dawn members that have got seats in parliament. One of the things they are no doubt hedging for is the immunity that they will receive. Syriza from what i recall has talked about reversing this law.
 
Bring out the emergency fear weapons, evoke the spectre of great woe in a desperate attempt to manage the masses:

"If there was a stoppage of payments because we refused to commit to the [EU-IMF] program and Europe cut us loose we would see a drastic drop in the circulation of currency as well," said the official, who requested anonymity as the government is no longer effectively in power. "We would have to freeze deposits. We wouldn't have enough capital to afford imports, rationing would have to be introduced, there would be shortages in medicines and other commodities. They [the EU] wouldn't have to force us out. It would be so difficult we would leave," he told me.

Not scary enough? Ok then lets try harder:

"If Greece cannot meet its obligations and serve its debt the pain will be great," Chrysohoidis, a senior member of the socialist Pasok party, told Flash radio. "What do we have to lose more than we have lost already? Our freedom," he said. "What will prevail are armed gangs with kalashnikovs and which one has the greatest number of Kalashnikovs will count … we will end up in civil war."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/14/eurozone-crisis-greek-exit-markets#block-25
 
That ex interior minister , Chrysohoidis, is just the sort of calm , collected, guy you want in a senior position in a crisis !

Seems to be a concerted effort to well and truly frighten the shit out of Greek voters prior to another election, by the mass media and all pro austerity figures.

Good report on Channel 4 tonight showing incredible scale of collapse of Greek economy under the "austerity" regime so far.. INCREDIBLE -- soon be a 25% reduction in GDP if austerity continues as planned. And the Greeks are meant to REPAY the debt in this economic condition... CRAZY !

Looks like the pace of radical political development in Greece is going to really accelerate from now on -- hopefully the pace of political radicalisation in Spain, Italy and Portugal will step up a pace too, or Greece is going to be in deep isolation shit , "punished" by capitalism for its affrontery, and as an example to the rest of us to "tow the line and knuckle under".
 
That's why the Eurozone's Germany's threats won't work any more, I don't think. Default would be painful, but it cannot be much worse than it already is, and will likely be over quicker than if they allow the austerity stitch-up to continue.
 
I think the potential for trouble is not something that can be comfortably reduced with a number 7 followed by a % symbol. This isn't looking healthy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Federal_election_results
:eek:
Nazi Party election results[58]
DateTotal
votesVotes,
percentageReichstag
seatsNotes

May 1924 1,918,300 6.5 32
Hitler in prison​
December 1924 907,300 3.0 14
Hitler released from prison​
May 1928 810,100 2.6 12
September 1930 6,409,600 18.3 107
After the financial crisis​
July 1932 13,745,000 37.3 230
After Hitler was candidate for presidency​
November 1932 11,737,000 33.1 196
March 1933 17,277,180 43.9 288
During Hitler's term as Chancellor of Germany​
 
Notwithstanding the poisonous ideology I'd probably admire such stridency from a politician, especially if I was Greek. One wonders how-many people, more weakly averse to right-nationalist ideas, might be taken in by this stuff.
 
It's fascinating to see the electorate drive this. And not just through the ballot box, on a daily basis polls are now driving events from Athens to Paris to Berlin to the markets. Most interesting times.
 
Notwithstanding the poisonous ideology I'd probably admire such stridency from a politician, especially if I was Greek. One wonders how-many people, more weakly averse to right-nationalist ideas, might be taken in by this stuff.
I think it will swing away from them in the June election, assuming it happens. But, I think their vote will have been helped a great deal by the way this crisis has been presented as a morality play, blamed on profligacy at the periphery rather than on half-hearted and badly managed monetary union.

The way the Eurozone works, it's like the UK having the SE (Germany) benefit from low inflation and high unemployment elsewhere, but also making local authorities (Eurozone countries) responsible for paying benefits from local taxes, whilst forcing the North East pay for the failure of Northern Rock and Scotland to pay for the failure of RBS just because the banks happened to be based there.

The centre bashing the periphery countries for irresponsible profligacy is bound to stir up backlash xenophobia and the search for scapegoats. It's not at all unlike the ways in which successive UK governments have increased support for the far right in the UK.
 
Here's another piece of baseless gossip to quicken the hearts of those thinking there's a military coup round the corner. Just spotted this from a Greek Tweeter, am currently searching for other reports to back it up.

via https://twitter.com/#!/IrateGreek
#Greece Army has ordered a sudden, real-time preparedness exercise of Rapid Response force on a remote island, via @doleross #rbnews

Ooooh scary. Any of the Greek comrades able to shed light on this? Reminds me of when they sacked the entire greek joint chiefs of staff, or whatever the equivalent is over there, a while back.
 
I've just been furnished with two sources about the unexpected military exercises taking place in Greece today, however they're in Greek. I post them here in the hope that some of our greek posters could give them a read and see what all the fuss is about.

http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41891&Itemid=139

http://www.ert.gr/kiononia/item/121...h-etoimothtas-ths-dynamhs-tacheias-antidrashs

Sudden activation of the airline's Rapid Reaction Force Air Force, which belongs to the business of Defence this morning was a decision I / Defence.
The mobilization was planned and in-rekro times (much smaller than the minimum provided for) more than 20 fighters, F-16, Mirage 2000-5 Mk2 and F-4E AUP different fighter took off from airports in Crete to Larissa direction of the islands of the Aegean If.

Formed two "packages" COMAO, which challenged, virtual to physical A.Aigaio different objectives, but also on ... coast of Asia Minor, and the script was also a breach of the Follow-on-Forces the forces that follow the first wave of invasion ports in Asia and gathering place.

Most of the aircraft had to protect the others who made their air attacks which had taken some F-16 and F-4AUP (four pairs in total).
The exercise was 100% assure surprise by the Defence to test the readiness of the Force which is the first to be involved if national security is threatened and it certainly has to do with ongoing exercises and Firtina Efes Turkish armed forces.

The aircraft after takeoff, they met a specified point forming packages COMAO led aircraft EMB-145H Erieye AEW & C , which took off and in the context of an unannounced exercise. The targeting of air targets, even beyond the target territory, became the after the grounding.

Please note that half deserve congratulations technicians managed land and erected more than 20 fighters, in a few minutes. Of particular interest was and the transfer of air-ground weapons (JDAM, AFDS, etc) in less time than the weapons stores in selter aircraft, which of course did not load (if loaded must be returned immediately after not returning to base landing with arms air-ground), but transport times were tested and virtual loading.
If you saw the "allies" that could fall on their head, would be much less arrogant ...

Department news defencenet.gr
 
Defencenet.gr is not a really reliable source of information, if all the info that they give out from time to time was true, we would be engaged in a war by now already. The media in Greece have been trying to terrorize the public with dillemas such as "euro or drachma", "IMF or chaos", "eurozone or chaos" etc now the new trick is also to terrorize that there may be a conflict with Turkey.

Apparently there will be new elections on 17th of June, it will be officially announced tomorrow.
 
Defencenet.gr is not a really reliable source of information, if all the info that they give out from time to time was true, we would be engaged in a war by now already. The media in Greece have been trying to terrorize the public with dillemas such as "euro or drachma", "IMF or chaos", "eurozone or chaos" etc now the new trick is also to terrorize that there may be a conflict with Turkey.

Apparently there will be new elections on 17th of June, it will be officially announced tomorrow.

Thanks for that mate, much appreciated.
 
Peter Bratsis Prof. of Political Theory at Salford Uni gives his take on the Greek situation. Well worth a watch

 
It is now official as I told you, elections on 17th of June.

The very first opinion polls have SYRIZA (left coalition party) as the first party, but of course it is still rather early in order to make estimations, we do not also know if there are going to be coalitions of parties. For example It seems that some center right neoliberal parties (New Democracy together with DHSY and DRASI) will cooperate in these elections.

More info as it comes.
 
It is now official as I told you, elections on 17th of June.

The very first opinion polls have SYRIZA (left coalition party) as the first party, but of course it is still rather early in order to make estimations, we do not also know if there are going to be coalitions of parties. For example It seems that some center right neoliberal parties (New Democracy together with DHSY and DRASI) will cooperate in these elections.

More info as it comes.

 
The establishment media and the establishment political parties have been playing the fear ticket - vote for us or there will be an economic apocalypse

But rather than the Greek people rushing out to vote for them they have been rushing out to withdraw their money from the banks, with some billions of Euros now having been withdrawn
 
The EU political establishment are playing it quite clever - there seems to be a common message coming out of all EU leaders attempting to portray the election as a referendum on Greece's membership of the euro (and by extension the EU), knowing that despite a majority being anti-austerity, a majority are also pro euro/EU.

This shows that the EU has more to fear from a Greek exit than Greece itself does (the most recent indication of this is the potential need to recapitalise the ECB itself if Greece turns its back on it) - which goes some way to vindicating Syriza's view that they can reject the imposed austerity terms and still remain within the euro/EU

The bank run thing is just a continuation of a near three year trend

Screen shot 2012-05-17 at 09.45.52.png
 
It will be really interesting to see if SYRIZA can form some sort of genuine anti austerity government - I suspect that if the KKE and DL refuse to cooperate we are more likely to see some sort of centrist pro-austerity coalition formed in the end - I could well imagine DL and the KKE being pressured into a supply and confidence motion for a government of all the pro-austerity parties...

I just can't see Tspris can make the maths stack up even if they do come first, and even given the extra 50 seats.
 
So much posturing.

No creditor is going to walk away when the debtor still has the means to pay something - it remains a question of how to squeeze what you can. There will be another hair cut and Greece is going no where - yet.
 
The EU political establishment are playing it quite clever - there seems to be a common message coming out of all EU leaders attempting to portray the election as a referendum on Greece's membership of the euro (and by extension the EU), knowing that despite a majority being anti-austerity, a majority are also pro euro/EU.

This shows that the EU has more to fear from a Greek exit than Greece itself does (the most recent indication of this is the potential need to recapitalise the ECB itself if Greece turns its back on it) - which goes some way to vindicating Syriza's view that they can reject the imposed austerity terms and still remain within the euro/EU

The bank run thing is just a continuation of a near three year trend

View attachment 19275

Do you think that Greece will end up exiting the EU altogether LD? What do you think will happen and what sort of time scale are we looking at? Apologies for my general ignorance on this subject, you know way more about economics than me!
 
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