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ISR Issue 56, November–December 2007



NEWS & REPORTS

Losses for Greek NDP

The Right wins again, but the Left makes gains

By ANTONIS DAVANELLOS

AFTER FOUR years of neoliberal attacks on labor and social rights by the right-wing New Democracy Party (NDP), snap national elections were held in Greece September 16. The elections took place after the catastrophic fires, which swept the country this summer, resulting in seventy-five people being burned to death, and dozens of villages and hundreds of thousands of acres of forest destroyed.

Despite this, the NDP won the elections once more, only with heavy losses. Its vote fell to 42 percent from 45 percent in 2004—a loss of 370,000 votes. The Right has now a marginal majority in parliament (152 members out of a total of 300) and as a result the new government of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is seen as being too weak to implement the program of counter-reforms it had promised to industrialists and bankers—with an emphasis on the break-up of the pension system and the fast privatization of major state utilities.

The victory of the right wing came as a result of a clear support to Karamanlis from the bourgeoisie. However, it was also due to the crisis of the social democratic party, PASOK, led by George Papandreou, son of Andreas Papandreou, the historic leader of PASOK. Papandreou characterized the Karamanlis government as “the worst government since the dictatorship.” However, against such a government, PASOK has managed to lose ground: its vote dropping to 38 percent from 41 percent in 2004—a loss of 280,000 votes. Immediately after the elections, a huge crisis erupted within PASOK concerning the party’s leadership, which could lead the social democratic party, which had been in power for twenty years, toward splits and massive losses. Polls indicate that 75 percent of PASOK’s supporters demand a political turn toward the left, as against all the party’s leading candidates, who insist in pursuing a solution modeled on Tony Blair or even…Bill Clinton.

The total votes won by the two major parties is for the first time less than 80 percent—that is, less than the percentage seen by leading analysts as a threshold for the stability of the two-party political system in Greece. Many of them suggest changing the electoral laws and going for new elections soon. The urgency comes from the fact that the lost votes of the two major parties have gone to the left. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the traditional Stalinist reformist party, saw its power base rise to 8 percent from 5 percent in 2004, gaining an extra 140,000 votes.

However, the real surprise in these elections were the gains of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza). This is the coalition of the reformist party (Synaspismos), which has made a radical turn to the left, and a section of the radical and revolutionary left. DEA, or International Workers’ Left—the sister group of the U.S. International Socialist Organization in Greece—has worked in this coalition since 2004. Syriza’s support increased to 5 percent from 3 percent in 2004—a gain of an extra 120,000 votes. This success is very significant given that Syriza lacks an organized power base in the countryside, where the leftist tendencies went mainly to the KKE. However, in large cities and Athens in particular, Syriza won 10 percent of the total number of votes. It also won 10 percent of new voters aged eighteen to twenty-four.

This result is very disturbing for the Right, which during the pre-election period had fiercely attacked Syriza, even threatening to suppress it with police measures; as well as for the social democrats of PASOK, which is now witnessing the creation of a left pole for its discontented supporters. Moreover, it is also disturbing for KKE, which finds it difficult to celebrate its win, for it fears the development of an alternative within the Left to the erratic policy of the Stalinists.

Within Syriza, there is optimism and a strengthening of the leftist and radical majority. DEA had very good voting results, but even better political results: Our comrades have built respect and credibility among Syriza supporters and the members of Synaspismos. This allows us to present our views from a stronger position as to how the struggle should develop, continuing a classic policy of united front within the movement and the wider Left.

In these elections, the far Left won a total of 0.65 percent of the votes. SEK (Socialist Workers’ Party, the Greek branch of International Socialist Tendency) made a sudden political turn and created a Coalition of the Anticapitalist Left with three other left-wing organizations. These comrades had set their goal as getting some revolutionaries into parliament, possible only if they received at least 3 percent of the overall vote. Instead, they won just 10,500 votes, that is, 0.1 percent. This coalition won fewer votes than what SEK alone had managed to win in the European elections in 2004 and approximately half of the votes of the small sectarian Maoist PCG m-l party, which won 17,500 votes (0.2 percent). It is a political disaster and the SEK leadership has not yet provided a convincing explanation.

Developments in Greece are entering into a “hot” period. There is a weak government that plans to implement a very aggressive program. There is a social democratic opposition party that has weakened and a Left that has been strengthened. There is also a workers’ and youth movement that has not been defeated in the major struggles of the last three years. This past summer, Greek students engaged in mass sit-ins and demonstrations against privatization of the universities and the abolition of a law that protects students against police action on campuses.

The direction of developments will be decided in the struggles over the ensuing few months.

Antonis Davanellos is a member of the editorial committee of the Greek socialist newspaper, Workers Left, and a member of the Greek sister organization of the International Socialist Organization, International Workers Left (DEA).

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