Greece to hold early elections on May 6th

The most likely outcome at the moment looks like a continuation of the New Democracy-Socialist grand coalition. Latest poll I can find:

ND (centre-right)- 20.5%

PASOK (centre-left) - 13.8%

KKE (Communist) - 7.5%

SYRIZA (Democratic Socialist ) - 7.4%

DIMAR (Democratic Socialist) - 6.7%

ANEL (center-right/anti-austerity) - 6.5%

XA (Nationalist far-right) - 3.0%

LAOS (Orthodox far-right) - 2.9%

Other - 4.1%

Leaves a massive undecided vote but I have no idea which way that will go.

So while that technically gives anti-austerity parties a majority, the trouble is they aren't the same sort of party at all. I don't suppose it's very likely that they can all work together.

Exit polls point to left party finishing ahead od PASOK. Two major parties to get less than 40% of the vote.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/06/greek-elections-exit-polls-p...

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ND/PASOK now down to 150. One short of a majority.

ND is down 14%. PASOK 30%.

Yes, they appear to be the anti-austerity wing of ND. I would imagine that they could form a coalition withe ND and PASOK if there is an amelioration of the harshest aspects of austerity.

It's good to see SYRIZA go up at the expense of the untrustworthy KKE.

Ken Burch wrote:

Jacob Richter wrote:

It's good to see SYRIZA go up at the expense of the untrustworthy KKE.

Hopefully, KKE will take the lesson and finally admit that there's no good reason, in the year 2012, for ANY party to stand for election on a program of unquestioning defense of Stalinism.

Given that Stalin sold out the Greek left(including the Communists)in 1948(as he had betrayed the Left in Spain by pulling out of the Civil War and then sold out every leftist in the world in 1939), I never understood why the KKE would feel any loyalty to the legacy of "Uncle Joe" at all. 

Stalin was never anything, in the end, but an enemy of the Left and an enemy to working people.  He had the loyalty of hundreds of millions, throughout the world, yet never returned that loyalty. Terror and represseion aren't revolution and the Gulag and Kolyma were unforgiveable.

Let Uncle Joe ROT, KKE.  That's your only way forward.  It's HIS fault that you made no gains today.

Sold out in 1939?  It was all that subsequent trading with Nazi Germany that was the sellout, not the more understandable signing of the Non-Aggression Pact (which didn't cover the trading).

Nationalists amongst the Greek left should look to the likes of Lassalle instead of Stalin, though.  That's for sure.

Well all I can say about it is this: Thank God Joe's Russia and the Red Army beat the Nazis. The Nazis were the most efficient mass murderers and biggest threat to democracy in the last century. 

Europe in turmoil as France and Greece reject austerity

France and Greece reject ECB diktats

Ken Burch wrote:

Yes, of course, the West would be interested in the resources.  The question was, was the only way to keep them from TAKING the resources to use the methods Stalin employed?

According to what Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, yes. He was determined to wage war of annihilation against Soviet communism. And it was determined beforehand that Russia would not be able to supply food for everyone the Nazi invaders included hence the secret closed door decision for a war of annihilation. The Nazis planned to mass murder millions more than they actually did.

All of Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Roosevelt and the corporate sponsors of Nazi Germany's war machine underestimated Stalin's readiness for western aggression part II. HNN documentary I viewed said that western leaders all thought the Nazis would occupy the Kremlin six weeks from the start of Barbarossa. This was Churchill's excuse for not allying Britain with Russia sooner. Stalin trusted no one. He did have delusions that the coming war would be a war for resources between fascist countries only. But that notion was soon cancelled with the German invasion.

In China, Chiang Kai-shek failed his western backers. Chiang was considered to be a slacker after murdering only 10 million Chinese before Maoists chased him and his thugs to Taiwan and Burma.

Historical precedents reveal that imperialists do not deal for another country's resources, Ken. They take. Same in Libya and Iraq. They covet Iran's sovereign oil wealth now. This is not difficult to understand given real history of resource grabs and attempted ones since WW II and even before that. All wars are resource grabs just as all national debts have been largely due to financing imperialist wars of aggression. Imperialists are very predictable in their need to wage war, and Stalin was keenly aware of it.

Fascists today are trying to avoid costly wars of aggression by achieving with monetary policies what used to be done with standing armies. They believe they can pillage and plunder Greece without firing a shot. Greeks aren't going along with the new liberal fascism, though.

I think Greeks are extraordinarily gutsy for sure. I wish as you do that they'd voted KKE. It really would have been a blow to European fascists and their plan for neofeudalism in Europe.

At the BBC website the top 8 parties are listed constituting 81% of the popular vote. Does anyone know how the other 19 was distributed?

Greek Leftist in Spotlight as Coalition Talks Begin

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230436310457738998330686866...

Mr. Tsipras, an admirer of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, has been advocating annulling Greece's bailout agreement with its foreign creditors, the euro-zone countries and the International Monetary Fund. He has raged against the austerity measures and deep structural reforms demanded of Greece in exchange for hundreds of billions of euros in financial aid.

He has also campaigned for debt forgiveness, or at the very least a moratorium on debt servicing for the next three years. Mr. Tspiras argues that this is the only way the country can build a primary surplus and extend a safety net of support to a growing number of citizens suffering from the deep recession, now in its fifth consecutive year.

But he has been less clear about whether he wants Greece to stay in the euro, the 17-nation currency bloc.

"The parties that signed the memorandum now form a minority. Their signatures have been delegitimized by the people," Mr. Tsipras said on Sunday. "The people showed at the ballot that national salvation doesn't go through the memorandum."

With no obvious combination of parties able to coalesce into a stable governing majority, Greece looks increasingly likely to go to elections again in a few weeks. June 10 is being floated as one possible date.

If Mr. Tsipras wins the next election—and his support grows as many expect—it will be difficult for other leftist parties not to join him in a coalition, including the former ruling Socialist party, which saw a big part of its supporters voting for Syriza.

And with that, Mr. Tsipras won't just have a seat at the table—he'll be sitting at the head of the table.

Spiros Rizopoulos, a political communications strategist and Chief Executive of Spin Communications, thinks that a second round of elections is inevitable—and would likely favor Syriza at the expense of the country's two mainstream parties.

"Tsipras will do better in a second round. He has momentum at a time when people are ready to listen to anything," said Mr. Rizopoulos. "If he is smart, he will start moving to the center. But politics is all about momentum and he has got the momentum."

Two years of harsh austerity measures Greece has adopted in exchange for successive bailouts from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund have pushed the economy deep into recession.

Unemployment, at close to 22%, is at record highs, business bankruptcies are soaring while consumer spending has plunged after slashed pensions and wages, along with higher taxes on everything from fuel to personal income. As a result, Syriza, along with a handful of other antiausterity parties, has surged as voters rejected the two mainstream parties that back them.

"The most irresponsible act would be to go to new elections, because new elections won't change anything. In fact protest parties, antiausterity parties like Syriza will likely get more support," said Ilias Nikolakopoulos a professor of political science at Athens University.

[url=http://www.marxist.com/may-2012-greek-elections-en.htm]Greek elections: If the left were united they could have won[/url]

Quote:

The results of yesterday's parliamentary elections in Greece – a political earthquake –are a clear indication of the growing radicalisation of society on the basis of the historic deadlock of capitalism and the movement towards an openly revolutionary situation.

SYRIZA is the big winner of the elections and has emerged as the undisputed voice of the turn to the left among the working masses. The high percentage it received and its surge towards the concrete possibility of gaining power, is giving back confidence to the working class and the poor masses after two years of numerous defeats, and has placed the ruling class with their backs against the wall, throwing them into confusion and panic.

The big losers on the other hand, are the conservative New Democracy party and the bourgeois leadership of PASOK, who suffered an unprecedented electoral collapse, while the main supports of a bourgeois government, LAOS and Democratic Alliance (Dimokratiki Symmachia, of Dora Bakoyanni) also emerged crushed and failed to get enough votes to enter the new parliament. The only party of the traditional bourgeois camp which gathered a satisfactory number of votes was the party of Mr Kammenos, the “Independent Greeks” (Anexartiti Hellines), based on anti-austerity demagogy. The "Golden Dawn" neo-Nazis (Chrysi Avgi) benefited from the disintegration of the traditional bourgeois parties and the political confusion among the backward petty bourgeois layers and thus were able to win a relatively high percentage, a warning to the Left and the labour movement.

The neo-Nazi party is called Golden Dawn, actually, as indicated in the post above yours.

Your quick segue from the neo-Nazis in Greece to the Germans' "total control" over Europe suggests you see some connection there. Are you trying to equate the Germans as a whole with the neo-Nazi fringe?

M. Spector wrote:

The neo-Nazi party is called Golden Dawn, actually...

Sounds like an invitation to be pissed on with each waking day.

An Argonauts fan are you, KenS?

M. Spector wrote:

The neo-Nazi party is called Golden Dawn, actually, as indicated in the post above yours.

Your quick segue from the neo-Nazis in Greece to the Germans' "total control" over Europe suggests you see some connection there. Are you trying to equate the Germans as a whole with the neo-Nazi fringe?

T'anks for correcting my error.

not trying to equate anything though do find it weird that Germany is busy telling countries what they can and cant do 'cause they don't like the election results.  well it seems that way to me but admittedly i really don't pay attention much just happened to catch the news.

I think were going to another election. The folks in PASOK support the austerity regime as a matter of principle, not a matter of political opportunism. I think SYRIZA storms to victory in June.

West Coast Greeny wrote:

The folks in PASOK support the austerity regime as a matter of principle, not a matter of political opportunism. I think SYRIZA storms to victory in June.

Anybody know if PASOK is really that unflinching? [And if so, why refuse to join a new coalition with ND?]

I'm sure that the SYRIZA grassroots is full of former PASOK activists. Has a good chunk of the institutional structure of PASOK also deserted, even working actively in SYRIZA? [Like former MPs, party workers, intellectuals formerly very close to PASOK, etc.]