Maybe one or two of the PASOK MPs could be talked into supporting SYRIZA as well. Seeing their party reduced to 4% support, it's not hard to picture a few of the PASOK survivors deciding to jump raft(we really can't call it a ship these days)simply in the name of continuing to have a political career.
It's hard to imagine any remaining PASOK'ers making the "stay the course" argument with any real conviction.
Occupy Wall Street produced this graphic in response to the SYRIZA victory:
Ken, you are assuming there are PASOK MPs. :)
Even if Syriza is just shy of a majority, it has alot of choices in partners. They could go with the KKE, even if the KKE doesn't want to particapte directly, they might agree to some sort of deal to act as King Maker in exchange for particular policy concessions. Also given that Golden Dawn came in third/close fourth, and half its MPs are in prison and don't seem in any position to vote, even in a minority Syriza in practical day to day terms might not need anybody.
No Syriza has won a strong hand either way, and the King Maker if there is one, will have very little leverage.
Ken, you are assuming there are PASOK MPs. :)
They did manage to hold 13 seats-their worst showing ever.
Occupy Wall Street produced this graphic in response to the SYRIZA victory:
"The people" are three white guys?
Also given that Golden Dawn came in third/close fourth, and half its MPs are in prison and don't seem in any position to vote
How does that work, since it is PR and people were voting for the party, not individuals
It is done. Syriza is taking power.
Hair’s breadth
With more than 70 per cent of the vote counted, Syriza was on 36 per cent of the vote, which may see it within a hair’s breadth of an overall majority in the incoming parliament. Earlier, official projections estimated it would take 150 of the assembly’s 300 seats, meaning Syriza would now have to begin the search for a coalition partner.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/syriza-leader-says-greek-peo...
If they do get a majority with that %, will people here stop talking about "Harper's phony majority"?
[
If they do get a majority with that %, will people here stop talking about "Harper's phony majority"?
No.
Occupy Wall Street produced this graphic in response to the SYRIZA victory:"The people" are three white guys?
They probably couldn't find clip art of black and brown people(or women)in togas in time. I mean ok, you've got a point technically, but is it really worth hairsplitting about one quickie graphic?
This could really get the ball rolling... If only this could happen in Russia!
Its as great if not greater moment than Maidan. If Germany pushes its luck in pushing Greece out the euro will unravel. Greece out of the Euro will immediately get rid of all its debt and like Argentina get a decade of 5-10% growth a year if it plays its cards right. That would get all the other euro debtor countries to bail on the euro forcing either terms to change ad hoc and the EU accomplish its true promise or sadly though imo unlikely return it to the 1960's in a slow decades work of reuniting the countires in one currency as another step to union... either way itll be a union that will be much better than the one it is now. Sooner would be better but later is inevitable.
I mean ok, you've got a point technically, but is it really worth hairsplitting about one quickie graphic?
I'm not going to get up on a soapbox about it, and probably wouldn't even have mentioned it if it hadn't seemed pretty incongruously non-inclusive for both the message and the source. But enough outrage over cartoons. :)
[
If they do get a majority with that %, will people here stop talking about "Harper's phony majority"?
No.
Because its a real majority if we like them and a phony one if we dont.
Also given that Golden Dawn came in third/close fourth, and half its MPs are in prison and don't seem in any position to vote.
How does that work, since it is PR and people were voting for the party, not individuals.
It is still individuals that are elected, off of the list. [Not that I know how many, if any, are in jail.]
But following up Bekayne's larger point...
Syriza doesnt necessarily need to have an arrangement with any rump party, or even individual MPs. I dont think there is going to be a "kingmaker". Even without missing Golden Dawn MPs... they can proceed as if not every MP will dare to vote against them. On a House vote by House vote basis, they make sure of that with individual MPs, without having to concede anything of significance to them. Likely conceding nothing.
'Monstrous Democratic Slap To EU:' Le Pen Hails Greek Anti-Austerity Party Victory
http://rt.com/news/226199-france-greece-elections-lepen/
"The victory of Greece's anti-austerity Syriza party is a monstrous democratic slap to the European Union believes Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front party, adding that for her this success means 'the trial of euro-austerity'..."
Syriza forms a coalition with ANEL, an anti-austerity right-leaning party that won 13 seats,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/world/europe/alexis-tsipiras-greece-co...
Syriza forms a coalition with ANEL, an anti-austerity right-leaning party that won 13 seats,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/world/europe/alexis-tsipiras-greece-co...
What could possibly go wrong?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/greece-elections-who-are-in...
The two parties have vastly diverging world views, standing well apart on issues such as illegal migration, Greece’s ever-fractious relationship with Nato rival Turkey, gay marriage and the role of the Greek Orthodox church.
Under their leader Panos Kammenos, who defected from the centre-right New Democracy party to form Anel at the height of the crisis in February 2012, the group has proved to be rabidly nationalistic in foreign affairs.
The politician is particularly virulent on the issue of the need to reclaim war reparations that he argues were never properly dealt with after the Nazis’ brutal occupation of the country. He was accused of being antisemitic when he claimed last month that Greek Jews paid less tax than other citizens.
How Alexis Tsipras got the Cassandra story wrong in his victory speech
The newly elected Greek leader dipped into Greek mythology to hit back at Syriza’s doubters. Unfortunately, unlike Cassandra, he got it wrong
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/alexis-tsiprass-victory-spe...
interestin'
European markets close higher after Syriza election victory
Talk of an immediate market meltdown after anti-austerity party Syriza won the Greek election proved wide of the mark, writes Nick Fletcher. The rally which followed last week’s quantitative easing announcement from the European Central Bank refused to be derailed by the vote, despite Syriza saying it wanted Greece’s debts to be restructured. Despite the uncertainty, investors seemed willing to take advantage of any market dips to step in and buy, believing it is unlikely Greece will actually exit the eurozone. The exception, unsurprisingly, was the Greek market, which ended lower after a volatile day. The final scores showed:
The euro is currently marginally higher at $1.1282 after earlier falling to a new 11 year low in Asian trading immediately after the election results were known, helped the confidence generated by the ECB’s money printing programme.
On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 17 points or 0.10%.
Meanwhile Greek bond yields have risen 50 basis points to 9.35%.
- from the Guardian
Tsipras honours Greek war dead
Alexis Tsipras’s first act as Greece’s new prime minister has been to lay flowers at the National Resistance Memorial at Kaisariani.
That memorial commemorates two hundred Greeks who were killed there in the second world war.
Helena Smith explains:
In a highly symbolic act, he laid a wreath at the memorial in Kaisariani, a suburb in Athens where hundreds of communist national resistance fighters were executed by the Nazis on May 1 1944.
Hundreds of well-wishes, many in tears, were there watching as he approached the site. Greek TV commentators couldn’t help themselves. “It is another up yours to the Germans,” they said.
Alexis Tsipras leaves some flowers on a monument during a ceremony at the Kessariani shooting range site. Photograph: Alkis
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jan/26/greece-election-syriza...
The markets seem to have taken all of this in stride. Political demagoguery by the pro-austerity Right is falling on deaf ears. The main worry is if the morally depleted Greek aristocracy decides to side with fascist and military elements, as has happened before.
This always happens with "the markets" and expected bad news: when the expected event happens, it has already been facotored in.
It is not really a de facto vote of no confidence in the "merchants of austeriy". It is just that Syriza has long been expected to win.
On the coalition:
I don't know the ins and outs at all.
In most situations you do not need an outright majority to govern. You don't even necessarily need any agreements, let alone formal coalition partners. Stephen Harper is testimony to that.
But this is not most situations.
Syryza needs a faultlessly strong hand for dealing with the EU. ANEL is equally dead set against the existing deals. So they have a shared interest, narrow as it is. Having a formal coalition keeps opponents from being tempted they can unseat Syriza at some vote over the unfolding negotiation process.
I suspect that both partners are well aware that this is a marriage of convenience that neither has an interest in continuing after the main work is done. So votes on programs Syriza will advance, and th parnersy cannot agree about will probably be put off until the formal coalition is no longer deemed necessary or desirable. [After which ANEL will continue to vote with the govt on policy around debt and negotiations.]
So Tom, when are you going to weigh in ?!
The rest of us are at best only addressing this based on general knowledge of the dynamics in play- not because we know much of anything about life and politics in Greece.
Despite German opposition, the ECB has declared it will open the taps and dump trillions if necessary into the Eurozone. Oddly enough this happened about week before the election in Greece.
We learned that a party with a radical agenda can appeal to young people and professionals. We learned that there is still some hope for the democratic system. If this financial conflict can be resolved peacefully, it will be very good news.
Historic Victory for SYRIZA Greece
quote:
SYRIZA is a party of class struggle. It's a party of modern class struggle, in which not only the working class in the old sense but much more dynamically the working class who are made up of knowledge workers, who are made up of women, who are made up--and SYRIZA has been marvelous on this--of immigrants, etc., are represented, and it's one that embedded itself in the last decade in the social movements, including in the great student revolt. I mean, every high school was taken over in Greece in 2009. So it's a very, very different beast.
That said, that said, the mobilization increase the last couple of years has declined. In the streets until 2013 were more Greek people per capita, probably, than anywhere else in the world, or at least very closely running behind Spain. But people got tired in the last two years. And insofar as SYRIZA has done so well in this election, it hasn't quite been matched by a resurgence of the mobilization.
It's a very difficult thing to transform the state. This will be an honest government. But whether it'll be the kind of government which is capable of mobilizing and organizing the unorganized, whether it will pay as much attention to putting people to work from inside the state, helping people help themselves, form co-ops, organize into new forms of political structures, that's the question.
And when I was in Greece just under a year ago--it was March 2014 I was last there, for a meeting I was invited to speak at by SYRIZA--there was great concern that the party did not have the mobilizing capacity. It wasn't--even though it was winning people to vote, it wasn't winning people to join the party. And I must say one of the reasons for that was that people don't want to go into a party branch meeting and hear an argument about whether you're going to stay in the euro or not stay in the euro between the hard left and the pragmatic leadership. They want to hear about what is to be done in their communities.
And I think if we only ask this question in terms of will you negotiate, won't you, well, of course you need to negotiate. This is Greece, after all. I mean, not even the United States can tell Germany what to do. Of course you need to negotiate. They need to negotiate hard. And I think they will negotiate hard.
So I don't think we ought to get caught up in determining everything in terms of what is said about plan A, i.e. staying in, or plan B, pulling out. We need to look much more concretely about who forms the government, who is appointed inside the state, whether they will challenge the old structures of the Greek state and democratize, introduce a fresh air of creativity politically. That's the crucial thing....
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...
Tsipras in July 2014 protesting Israel's Gaza bombing
“Palestine is in perpetual war — this war must stop at some point; this brutality cannot be tolerated,” Tsipras said
Tsipras: Brutality in Palestine Must End
.
The rise of Syriza can’t just be explained by the crisis in the eurozone: a youthful generation of professionals has had enough of tax-evading oligarcsI wonder what their take is on tax-evading non-oligarchs?
Sure, but here is the context:
This is not a new or peculiarly Greek phenomenon. In Europe generally, about 19% of all economic activity goes unrecorded. But based on research dating back to the 1990s, “tax morality” among Greeks is particularly low – the 22nd lowest among 26 European countries. Furthermore, Transparency International finds that the Greek public sector is more corrupt than that of any other European Union member state. Unsurprisingly, Greeks are reluctant to blindly fulfill their tax obligations.
Greece has a remarkably high percentage of self-employed citizens – a key facilitator of tax evasion. The incentive for Greeks to remain self-employed is self-evident; the Greek government collects a staggering 43% of total labor costs, compared to a 26% average in other countries of the developed world. The shadow economy helps Greeks profit individually, but it also severely limits the state’s ability to properly collect taxes and provide public services.
Before Greece joined the Eurozone, the country was capable of reducing the level of debt through higher inflation. This option is no longer available; the country has submitted to the monetary policy set by the European Central Bank (ECB). Furthermore, the shadow economy also hinders business development. The productivity of “gray” companies is strangled because they do not have easy access to loans. Non-productive companies, meanwhile, pay low wages.
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/10/12/two-out-of-three-greeks-commits-tax-evasion/
Syriza needs to ANEL to show stability, not day to day governece, and for a solid show on the antiausterity front. Beyond that for Syriza's program promises are fine, a good chunk of Golden Dawn members are in prison, which means they're in no position to actually particapate in voting, giving Syriza more of a free hand to do as it wishes.
Hi all, here is an interview I conducted with Michael Albert of Z, regarding the American radical left's views on Syriza and related topics. I was and still aminvolved with Syriza's International Solidarity Campaign:
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/syriza-greece-the-american-radical-left/
Hi all, here is an interview I conducted with Michael Albert of Z, regarding the American radical left's views on Syriza and related topics. I was and still aminvolved with Syriza's International Solidarity Campaign:
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/syriza-greece-the-american-radical-left/
Thanks Tom for keeping us abreast of what's actually going on.
So Tom, when are you going to weigh in ?!
The rest of us are at best only addressing this based on general knowledge of the dynamics in play- not because we know much of anything about life and politics in Greece.
Hi KenS, like I mentioned in the post just above I was actually but virtually involved with this campaign, translating stuff, getting statements of support, forwarding information, getting local Greek speaking media to cover topics, setting up interviews and thinhs like that..so that was takiing quite a bit of time...
This is a huge victory, it fell short of the majority and did not do as well in certain major towns as it should of. There was an immense propaganda campaign. People are under so much streess and freightened of what will come next, additional taxes they cant afford, haircuts of their bank accounts, a euro crisis. Its been like that for the last 4 years.
Moreover, the Samaras government did not allow young people who just turned 18 to vote, 100,000 votes lost (60% would've gone to Syriza at least). 200,000 young Greeks have emigrated abroad and were not allowed to vote at their embassies...of course, it goes without saying that they were not too fond of the Samaras government. Then final insult to young people was the fact that they did not allow universities to push exams back a week. The Greek electoral system forces people to vote where their permanent residency is registered. So if you are studying in the northern city of Thessaloniki but you are from the Island of Crete, you wont be able to vote on a Sunday and make it back on Monday morning for your Exam. So that's another 10s of thousands of votes lost, which surely would not have gone to Samaras and most probably to Syriza.
On election night Tsipras dedicated Syriza's victory to the youth of Greece but especially to the 200,000 young people who have been forced to leave and find work elsewhere.
It was moving speech and a moving night.
Given my background and my political background my grandfather was a prisoner of conscious for decades and part of the EAM national resisitance of WWII, the laying of flowers at Kasiariani, photographed above, by a young 40 year old PM, who lives in an apparment in a working class part of Athens was very moving.
My disapointment: horribly male cabinet
My greatest excitement: Varoufakis as Finance Minister!!
Tom, you are right they are a lot of men in the cabinet
Syriza's new Finance Minister: "We're going to destroy the basis" of the "Greek oligarchy system"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJP1Ysx47fo …
First we take Athens: Europe’s debt colony revolts
quote:
Europe’s debt colony
‘Harsh treatment’ indeed. In the past four years Greece’s economy has shrunk by a quarter. Child poverty is at 40%. A quarter of a million people are without electricity. Unemployment stands at 26%, and most of these people do not receive benefits. For those in work, job security and wages have been cut and 33% of the population has no health insurance. The list goes on.
The story is a familiar one. The Greek state was lent huge amounts by the IMF and Eurozone countries — it is 175% of it’s GDP in debt — in exchange for brutal austerity conditions to be imposed. Syriza want to stop all of this. The new Finance Minister described the bailout deals, with characteristic Greek flair, as “fiscal waterboarding policies that have turned Greece into a debt colony.” He is now aiming to negotiate 50% of their debt to be wiped off (such a thing has happened many times before, including to Germany in 1953).
Syriza now lead the only anti-austerity government in Europe, with the 40-year-old former communist student leader Alexis Tsipras at the helm. Their emphasis on negotiating with their creditors has drawn criticism from the left, with many accusing them of tempering their views or never really having been that radical in the first place.
Syriza seems to understand the fundamental antagonism of its relationship with the Troika: debtor doesn’t want to pay, lender wants its money back. Along with Spain, Italy, and Ireland, they may have a certain ability to bargain collectively. “We both want us to be in the euro. We’re not going to pay though. Kick us out? Then we’ll all leave and your EU is finished,” so to speak.
Roots in years of struggle
No matter how ideologically brilliant this “formidable coterie of academics, human rights advocates, mavericks and visionaries” may be, there have been two prongs of anarchist practice that have made demands for radical change realistic:
It is only possible for Syriza to exist because of the country’s vibrant, antagonistic culture of direct action and prefigurative politics. They are the result of years of struggle. To talk about party politics without talking of these networks is entirely illiterate.
What happened in Greece is deeply intertwined with social movements around the world. Syriza would mean nothing without, for example, Spain’s Podemos — a one-year old radical leftist party set to win the 2015 elections. Their victory would put an end to the two-party system that has reigned since Franco. Podemos’ leader, Pablo Iglesias, took to a stage with Tsipras a few days before the election. Side by side, punching their fists in the air, they looked like two cute drunk IT-workers as they sang along to Leonard Cohen’s classic:
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
The ‘contagion effect’ of this far left victory will resound throughout Europe, boosting support for a range of left parties: Sinn Féin in Ireland, the Greens in United Kingdom, Die Linke in Germany, Parti de Gauche in France, and also in Greece’s historic nemesis Turkey, where marginalized leftist and Kurdish groups such as the HDP have found an ally in Syriza.
The specifics of these groups are unremarkable enough, but the widespread rejection of traditional political parties, and the breakdown of a parliamentary consensus on debt is something new.
Well, that did not take long Greece voted for sanctions against Russia.The dream was nice while it lasted.
Now lets forget SYRIZA.
The Saker
There is also a really ominous development, reminding some of Chile and past military "solutions" to Greek political crises, with the selections of a right wing nationalist for Defense Minister.
That ranks pretty high for examples of Ultimate Litmus Test.
In regard to the oppositional view of the Ukrainian civil war, the following is notable ...
The speaker of the European parliament Martin Schulz, who is due to meet Tsipras in Athens later on Thursday, said Greece could not at the same time seek to negotiate with Europe over its debt and strike a dissident line on Russia.
Right.
Sufficient reason to write off Syriza.
Is Democracy Dead in the West? by Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40847.htm
voted for sanctions against Russia?
Where pray tell did you see that?
Syriza has refused to condemn the Donetsk Government for its actions in its seaport of Mariupol, whose people voted heavily to separate from Kiev....
Their first foreign meeting was with the Russian ambassador, after which the Russian government offered to help Greece......
Let's give this some time before you condemn a possibly important political initiative.......
Will Syriza move towards an alliance with BRICS as they build a relationship with Russia?
However Syriza plays their international politics, their essence in support of building a grass roots development movement in support of the poor must be supported!
There are some disturbing signs. That's it.
Don't Let the Ridiculous Smears Fool You: Syriza Is No Party of the Radical 'Far Left'
Then there is Greece, where Syriza's Alexis Tsipras, a mild-mannered, tieless civil engineer, was sworn in as prime minister on 26 January. Judging by the hysterical tone of the press coverage, you could be forgiven for assuming that the love child of Karl Marx and Che Guevara had been elected to office in Athens. "Far-left firebrand races to victory", read a headline in the Times. "Shock waves across Europe as the far left sweeps to power in Greece", shrieked the Daily Mail.
Syriza, we are told, by everyone from the Mail to the BBC and the Guardian, is a bunch of radicals, revolutionaries and extremists. It's not centre left; it's far left. In this bizarre inversion of reality, those who helped to inflict mass unemployment, widespread poverty and public-health emergencies - involving a succession of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics - on a once-developed western country are deemed to be the moderates and the centrists. Is any more evidence needed of how our political debate has become so skewed to the right?
Not apologizing for being Left now makes you "far left".
The fascists are definitely the biggest threat to any government like Syriza. The danger of this in a Greek context is extreme. Removing this threat is the first priority. The next is negotating the haircut with the ECB.
Giving far-right the defence ministry incorporates two major elements which could mobilize in a putsch against Syriza. Syriza will control the military through the right wing. It is also stating interoperability with NATO and the Western powers, and should ensure the loyalty of the military. This also stated explicitly that this is not a revolution. These elements on the far right take the same constitutional position, unlike Golden Dawn, who would sieze by force. What it means is the probability of a putsch is reduced greatly.
This is an extremely cynical piece of political calculation. For the haircut to go well, the aristocrats have to be eviscerated. It is reasonable, because it was their failure to pay taxes which caused Greece's economic problems in the first place. I think Syriza is still in a position to do this. Allowing a country to pay its bills through a fair taxation system is not a far-left proposal. It is reason.
Varoufakis tells Dijsselbloem: “Greek gov’t will not negotiate with Troika”
I don’t know what the two finance ministers said behind closed doors, but the press conference run wild. Yanis Varoufakis was very clear: “Greek government will not negotiate with the Troika, only with official parters” he said during a joint press conference with the head of Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem in Athens Friday afternoon. Greek FinMin said also that the country “will not seek aid extension” and described the Troika as “flimsily-constructed & anti-European.”
He said further that the Greek government had “no intention to abstain from its pledges that there is no recognition of the bailout programs” and stressed “We won’t accept a continuation of this self-perpetuating crisis.”...
more
Greece Won't Cooperate with 'Troika', Rejects Aid Extension (and vid)
http://rt.com/news/228031-greece-troika-varoufakis-bailout/
"The new left-wing government has said that it will not cooperate with the 'troika' of international lenders, and does not plan to seek an extension for its aid package which is set to expire at the end of February.
Rejecting cooperation with the 'troika' from the EU and IMF, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said he would rather negotiate the debt in direct talks with eurozone leaders. 'This position enabled us to win the trust of the Greek people,' Varoufakis said Friday. 'Our first act as a government will not be to reject the rationale of questioning this program through a request to extend it,' Varoufakis said.
Greece Should Turn To BRICS For Protection
http://paulcraigroberts.org/2015/01/30/sputnik-news-service-greece-turn-...
"A former economic advisor to the Reagan administration believes that Western banks and governments are a threat to Greek sovereignty and to its people's standard of living, and that only by aligning itself with Russia can Greece stave off these 'marauders'.
'Can Greece escape from a situation comparable to the European Dark Ages where populations were ravaged by marauding raiders? Perhaps if Greece realigns with Russia and gains financing from BRICS. Otherwise, Roberts notes, 'accommodation is unlikely to occur, because a reasonable accommodation is not the desire of Washington, the EU, or of Greece's creditors..."
Yanis Varoufakis interview with Barracuda Beeb
Good luck with that Angela. 
Merkel rules out more debt relief
Im guessing Greece wont be getting that final 7.2 billion Euros
