Meanwhile.. in Greece

Cross-posting some bits from pw.org as it’s a useful update on the first round of elections and makes for interesting contrast with ourselves. These were originally posted on Sunday & Monday.

 

Many of the EU mandarins are looking with fear at the local elections in Greece, which have just concluded. As expected these elections have become much more that just “local” elections, and we did experience the same levels of international “advise” for Greek voters as we did 2 years ago. However, this time around the EU spin machine seems to have had the opposite effect. Exit polls throughout the country put the SYRIZA vote a lot higher than expected, they put the Golden Dawn vote much lower than anticipated, and confirm the biggest fear the EU mandarins had, the demise of PASOK/ELIA.

SYRIZA candidates throughout the country seem to be leading with anything between 7% and 10% ahead of the nearest rivals, especially in Athens and Attica, which would represent the largest chunk of voters. Two points worth nothing, those that show this strong lead are both young and more often women. The biggest surprise is the performance put in by Rena Dourou, SYRIZA candidate for Attica (Greece’s most populated area) who is leading the highly popular outgoing major Yannis Sgouros by 7-8%. In Athens, the independent, and very popular outgoing Giorgos Kaminis (who banned Golden Dawn’s “Greeks only” food handouts and took them on every step of the way) is being matched vote-wise by the 33 year old SYRIZA candidate Gavriil Sakellaridis. It looks like Ilias “the boxer” Kassidiaris, Golden Dawn golden boy and candidate for Athens will not make the second round, and miss it by a long shot. First thing this morning he started shouting about rigged votes “denying Golden Dawn their rightful place…”.  He must have seen the writing on the wall. In every poll before the elections, GD was tipped to run between 7 and 10% of the vote. The candidates (outside of Athens) are barely reaching 3 or 4 so far. And in Athens Ilias the boxer is polling at 15%, some 12 points lower than the polls suggested before the vote.

Greek law states that voting must happen on a Sunday, and this time around the students did show up in their thousands. During the last election student apathy was seen as the main cause for SYRIZA not getting the majority they should have gotten. Despite all the jibes about not being organized and scare mongering (Would you believe that TSIPRAS is not even religious????How could anybody vote for such a person?), it would seem that SYRIZA got it spot on this time around.

PASOK looks like it is heading for the political graveyard, and if that becomes Greek reality tomorrow morning, then the EU’s worst nightmare will become true, for that will leave Samaras and his merry band of muppets in an impossible position and will almost certainly result in a general election. And then, we do of course have round two next week, when we vote for Europe. If the SYRIZA swing as witnessed so far today holds, then Europe could be in for some proper, pure Greek shock treatment…

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ND/PASOK/ELIA have lost the vote in all the major centres and in the North of the country. In the South (the poorer parts), ND has lost a lot of support while PASOK performed fairly ok. PASOK will also claim vicotry in Thessaloniki with Yiannis Boutaris (an independent but ex PASOK member) winning the vote. Also, in Thessaloniki, the same Yiannis Boutaris organized a plebicide on the question of selling of the cities water company, which is one of the TROIKA demands. The vote was 98% against the sell-off, which prompted Boutaris to state that if he wins the second round, then the proposed sale is off the table, as per the wishes of the people of Thessaloniki. We await Ollie Rehn to pop up out of his box…

The good news is that Golden Dawn is out of the race everywhere. None of their candidates have made it to the second round, so we will not have pockets of fascism from where they can start re-building the “ancient Greek empire based on ancient Greek values”.

In overall terms, it looks like the shift in votes is quite considerable with ND/PASOK losing about 9% of their voters, and SYRIZA picking up about 6% of that. The remaining 3% has gone to independent candidates, many of whom had the backing of SYRIZA but were not outright SYRIZA members. Next round next week, together with the EU elections. It looks like the EU commissions worst nightmare is slowly unfolding, especially since Venizelos has again insisted that the government should be transformed into a government of “national unity” and must be joined by SYRIZA and DIMAR to be effective. He again leaves both Golden Dawn and Independent Greeks out of the “national unity”, as well as KKE which looks like it has pulled an estimated 6.8% of the vote, a full percentage point higher than PASOK.

 ***

For the first time in its history, ND has FAILED to get even 1 candidate through to the second round of voting next week in Athens, Thessaloniki, Attica, Piraeus or North Macedonia. Which means that roughly 50% of the Greek voters (33% live in Attica alone) have turned their backs on the ruling coalition partner. Captain Tony is not impressed, and has immediately started scare-mongering and calling on people to “show they want stability by reversing the trend in the European elections, or face Greece sliding backwards… It’s rather hard for people with their backs against the wall to go further backwards, but that seems to escape the good captain and his merry band who still believe they are Gods gift to the country. In fact, they believe they ARE the country.

Venizelos can smell blood and is going for it, reiterating his calls for a “government of unity” or else… It was reported last night that Samaras is considering snap elections after seeing his party lose all support in the most populated areas of the country, but he was apparently talked out of this after a phone call or two to the masters in Brussels and Berlin. I predict an onslaught in the international press starting today, designed to bully the Greek people into voting correctly…

***

It seems that the panic button has been pressed in Brussels and Berlin. As was expected, the EU driven steamroller is steaming up already. The full count has not been officially published yet, but Herr Junckers is already in Athens to discuss “strategy” with Samaras, and give “moral support”.

Of course the necessary insults are being lobbed at “the leftists”, and wild accusations are flying, including those by the incumbent mayor of Piraeus, Vassilis Michaloliakos (ND) who claims his defeat was due to “death threats” to him and his supporters by leftist AND GD supporters of the winner, Yiannis Moralis, a director of Olympiakos soccer club. The Olympiakos supporters are not exactly known as the nicest people on earth, but demanding a unit of the riot police to “protect” him when he goes out during the week to canvass is pushing it a little. If anything, that WILL attract the Ultra’s who are always on the lookout for a little sparring match with the police…

Ollie is apparently due on Wednesday, and despite the fact that none of their candidates made it past the first hurdle, people are being warned of the danger of Golden Dawn coming to power. And of course, the only remedy is a vote of ND…

***

Sunday was round one, separating the men from the boys so to speak. Now that the play-offs are out of the way, we go to the real issue of picking mayors and councilors. So far, the good news is that Golden Dawn is not in the race anymore, so no chance of some Fascist political stronghold somewhere. PASOK is sliding ever faster down the slippery slope, and taking all those that associate with them down as well (DIMAR, GREEN party) etc.

Next Sunday will be the real face-off between SYRIZA and ND. As it stands, SYRIZA has the vote in Attica, Athens, North Macedonia, Piraeus and Thessaloniki, which between them represent roughly 50% of the population. ND seems to have managed to stem the tide in the more rural, conservative areas, mainly with the not so insignificant assistance of the Orthodox Church who can’t begin to think that an atheist like Tsipras could possible gain enough power in Greece to become PM. That would just be Armageddon in overdrive… Opinion polls give SYRIZA a 5% lead over ND, so Athens has become the stomping ground of all the EU heavyweights who are talking “strategy” and spouting doom and gloom if we don’t vote correctly..