Greek Elections: The Day After Tomorrow
Greek Elections: The Day After Tomorrow
Kostis Karpozilos: Greek Elections – The Day After Tomorrow
For over thirty years, elections in Greece produced strong governmental majorities, with one of two parties, the right-wing New Democracy and the ?new labor? PASOK, holding power. This pattern was challenged during the last two years. The ongoing depression disintegrated the PASOK government, which was forced to form a coalition government with New Democracy last November, a ?historic compromise? in the name of austerity policies.
The elections held this Sunday took place in an atmosphere of anger and distrust. The almost empty Syntagma Square on Friday, May 4 at PASOK?s main election rally foreshadowed the oncoming defeat of the old political order. Nonetheless, the final results surpassed all predictions. PASOK and New Democracy combined for a mere 32 percent of the vote, falling fall short of the 151 seats they would have needed to form a coalition; only two years earlier PASOK alone claimed 44 percent, and together with New Democracy exceeded 77 percent.
PASOK witnessed a staggering defeat: for the first time since 1974 it ranked third, gaining only 13 percent at the national level. In the largest and most socially diverse constituency of Athens, it came in fifth, witnessing a collapse from 40 percent in 2009 to a pathetic 9 percent, with even lower figures in working-class districts. New Democracy, under the leadership of Antonis Samaras, managed to gain 19 percent of the national popular vote, the highest of any party, but given its campaign slogan for a ?strong one-party government,? there was no room for celebrations.
PASOK and New Democracy paid the price for supporting the memorandum measures with the EU and IMF, which have led Greek society into an unprecedented depression with no foreseeable exodus. The election results signify the inability of austerity policies to create a consensus, while the electoral emancipation of millions of voters highlights the accumulated desire for a change.
The pre-election tactics of the ruling parties appeared to mix defeatism and aloofness. They offered no innovative initiatives and remained confined in their ?unavoidable measures? rhetoric, while following a familiar path of naming television celebrities as candidates and underestimating popular dissatisfaction. The pre-election period was exceptionally subdued; there was no blackmailing dilemma as there has been in the last two years, where the European future of Greece was predicated upon the acceptance of the memorandum measures. This fact is the key to understanding what happened in Greece on Sunday as well as subsequent and ongoing developments.
The dividing line until the end of the election night was between pro-memorandum and anti-memorandum parties, and the majority of voters sided with the latter (a number of small, neoliberal, pro-memorandum parties supported by the mainstream media did not make it into parliament). But this clear-cut line is disappearing, and a new paradigm is emerging, unifying pro-EU forces under the banner of national unity in order to revise the austerity policies. The readiness of New Democracy and PASOK to recognize Sunday?s results and incorporate the demand for a ?new social contract? indicates this transformation, which is interwoven with aspirations for a new European agenda after the defeat of Sarkozy in France.
On Monday, in accordance with constitutional provisions, New Democracy?s Antonis Samaras sought counterparts for a coalition government. Given the election results this initial attempt was expected to fail, as it quickly did. This means that it is time for the surprise winner of Sunday, the leftist coalition SYRIZA?an acronym for Coalition of the Radical Left?to go through the same process. On Sunday SYRIZA rose from its 4 percent of the vote in 2009 to an impressive 16 percent, surpassing PASOK and ranking first in the majority of urban centers.
The astonishing result reflects the effective anti-memorandum rhetoric of its leader Alexis Tsipras, who combines abstract ideas of social transformation with a call for Greece to remain within the eurozone. This past summer thousand of protesters of Syntagma Square?traditional middle-class supporters of PASOK, radicalized youth, and new social forces?gave support to the idea of a leftist government that would challenge the memorandum policies. The issue now is whether this can be achieved and, if so, under which program. The political platform of SYRIZA, a fluid text with radical progressive slogans but not many coherent measures, was until recently condemned by the ruling parties as ?destruction? and a ?return to the drachma.? Surprisingly, PASOK and New Democracy have now suggested a coalition government with SYRIZA, proclaiming that this is an opportunity to consider alternative strategies concerning the crisis.
A coalition government with SYRIZA as the leading force is a far-fetched but telling scenario. On May 7, the Greek Federation of Enterprises stated the need for a ?national emergency government? with the participation of SYRIZA, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos asked for a solution ?involving all pro-European parties,? and New Democracy leaked that it is considering parliamentary support of SYRIZA. These are indications of a new public agenda that would utilize the election results as a bargaining tool for the loathed new austerity package expected to come in June. Anticipating that SYRIZA would reject their support, the former ruling parties would try to present SYRIZA as an irresponsible force incapable of exercising its unique opportunity to make a change, and thus abstaining from real politics in the name of its leftist ideology. If PASOK and New Democracy pursue such a strategy, they might successfully spur a new election this June.
Not surprisingly, many commentators on the elections focused on SYRIZA in order to confirm their preconceived idea of Greece as the forefront of social change to the left, paying less attention to parallel developments on the right. On Sunday the Independent Greeks, an anti-memorandum, populist, and anti-immigrant party created only two months before the election, exceeded 10 percent of the vote, surpassing traditional forces of the left like the Greek Communist Party. Furthermore, the neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn reached 7 percent and will bring in twenty-one representatives. This is its first entrance to parliament in Greek history; in 2009 it was an insignificant group of true believers with 0.3 percent of the vote. Now Golden Dawn is entitled to substantial state subsidies as a parliamentary party; one can imagine how this will enhance its vigilant paramilitary squads in the streets of Athens. These ideological offspring of Adolf Hitler gained considerable support even in communities that had suffered during the German occupation in the 1940s, attesting to the deep transformations that have occurred over the last few years, but also to the popularity of their slogans calling politicians ?traitors.?
It would be an exaggeration to say that 7 percent of the Greek population are Nazis. For many, especially the young, the ideological heritage of Golden Dawn was not evident or even known at all. On the other hand, it would be wrong to underestimate the appeal of racist anti-immigrant policies. The rise of the extreme Right clearly corresponds to the demonization of immigrants during the pre-electoral period. The two weeks leading up to the elections were dominated by the coalition government?s plans for ?immigrant shelter camps? under police surveillance, the publication of HIV-positive prostitutes? photos in the name of the ?common good,? and the New Democracy slogans for ?re-occupying our streets,? which ostensibly had been taken over by political dissent and ?illegal immigrants.? The elections could indeed bring about a new social contract, but it could be one calling for a restoration of ?law and order? and a return to an idealized pre-memorandum past.
The day after the elections brought forth new challenges that overshadow the importance of the anti-austerity, anti-IMF, anti-memorandum popular vote. The old political order will not be restored, but this does not imply a linear path in a progressive direction. The Greek people have stated their dissatisfaction with the politics of the past, but now they will have to decide on policies for the day after tomorrow.
