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| -Election 2012 | |
| Greek election critical and uncertain | |
| 2012-05-06 | |
Public anger has been so high that politicians have been forced to maintain low-profile campaigns for fear of physical attacks on the streets in a country battered by business closures and hundreds of thousands of job losses. The last opinion polls published before a two-week blackout ahead of the election showed PASOK and New Democracy hemorrhaging support since the last election in 2009. Their support has reached historic lows, plunging to percentages last seen in the mid-1970s after the 1974 fall of the seven-year military dictatorship. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Entirely dependent on billions of euros worth of international rescue loans from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund, Greece must impose yet more austerity measures next month, if it is to keep the money flowing and prevent a default and a potentially disastrous exit from the euro. New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras is expected to come in first, thereby benefiting from a bonus 50 seats in the 300-member parliament. But even with that he would fall far short of the 151 seats needed to form a government. Opinion polls projected him winning not more than 25.5 percent. PASOK, which stormed to victory in the last parliamentary election in 2009 with more than 43 percent and George Papandreou at its helm, has seen its support collapse over the past two years. Now headed by former finance minister Evangelos Venizelos, it is fighting off a challenge by anti-bailout left-wing parties, with opinion polls projecting PASOK to win between 14.5 and 19 percent. If that happens, it would be the lowest since November 1974, when the party won 13.5 percent just two months after being founded. Venizelos warned that Greece faces default and mass poverty if voters back anti-bailout parties. “Sunday will decide whether we remain in Europe and the euro, and we stay on a course that is difficult but safe, after having covered most of the distance, to finally emerge from the crisis and (austerity),” he said during his final campaign rally in central Athens on Friday night. “Or it will (determine) whether we embark on an adventure, sliding back many decades and taking the country to default, to leave Greeks facing mass poverty.” Repeated rounds of tax increases and reductions of salaries and pensions over the past two years have seen the country mired in a fifth year of recession and unemployment spiral to above 21 percent. The backlash has seen voters turn to smaller groups and mostly anti-bailout offshoots created by disgruntled deputies who rebelled rather than vote in favor of the measures. Up to an unprecedented 10 parties have been projected to win more than the 3 percent minimum threshold for a parliamentary seat. That includes the extreme right Golden Dawn, which has been riding high on the emotive issue of illegal immigration, promising to clean up crime-ridden, ghetto-like city neighborhoods and mine the country’s borders to stop more migrants getting in. “People are not choosing smaller parties because they believe in their agendas,” political communications expert Spiros Rizopoulos said. “I doubt if anyone has ever read an agenda of a smaller party. It’s because they want to protest a decision that has been made” that led Greece into the bailouts and the ensuing austerity. For the past six months, New Democracy and PASOK have been uneasy bedfellows in a coalition government cobbled together under technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos. The former European Central Bank head was appointed after Papandreou was forced to resign following a sudden decision to put the country’s second bailout to a referendum. The coalition, which initially also included a small right-wing party, was formed with the sole mandate of securing the country’s second bailout and a massive bond swap deal with private creditors that wiped more than (euro) 100 billion ($130 billion) off the country’s national debt. With both secured in early April, elections were called. Samaras has insisted he will not enter into a coalition with his Socialist rivals. “It is not in the interest of the Greek people to have a power-sharing government of this kind to exist,” he told supporters at his main campaign rally in Athens on Thursday night. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #8 This is an interesting stage in the EURO play. It looks like either Greece will be kicked out of the Euro or Germany will leave, as they have no intention of indefinitely carrying Greek freeloaders. On Friday, the German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schauble, issued a blunt warning to Greek voters in yesterday's parliamentary elections, in which many are expected to turn to minority parties opposed to the strict austerity terms of the country's bailout. ''If Greek voters were to vote for a majority that does not honour those agreements, then Greece will have to bear the consequences,'' Mr Schauble said. Politicians fear Greece could renege on promises to foreign lenders, leading to bankruptcy and an exit from the euro, risking contagion to other countries. |
| Posted by: tipper 2012-05-06 14:50 |
| #7 You know. It's obvious they'll tell any lie to keep themselves in power. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-05-06 12:54 |
| #6 Venizelos warned that Greece faces default and mass poverty if voters back anti-bailout parties. "Apres moi le deluge" |
| Posted by: tipper 2012-05-06 12:40 |
| #5 “The Greek people never learned to pay their taxes …. because no one is ever punished. It’s like a gentleman not opening a door for a lady.” |
| Posted by: newc 2012-05-06 12:05 |
| #4 It would only be critical to the Eurocrats who would lose power if the serfs realized they don't have to stay. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2012-05-06 10:01 |
| #3 potentially disastrous exit from the euro. Disastrous for whom? I understand the arguments, but, at root it really does seem to be all about the elites and their cronies. If you want to have a country, then you have to have control over you currency. The Greeks (and most of Europe) do not have the latter so they also don't really have the former regardless of how it's spun. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2012-05-06 09:42 |
| #2 Critical to what---changing the course of history? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-05-06 05:25 |
| #1 Now the Greeks have got the $130B, they can renege on the terms. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2012-05-06 04:48 |