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Sometimes the bad guys win

DCblogger's picture
Submitted by DCblogger on Sun, 06/17/2012 - 5:33pm
Departments: 
Department of Bust Out Profit Models and Vampiric Capitalism
Thread: 
Class Warfare

The pro-bail out/Kleptocracy party in Greece won the election. The only good news is that Pasok, the socialist-in-name-only-party came in a distant third. That means when left parties sell out it takes a while for the entire left to accept that fact.

Somewhere in the archives at The Agonist Sean-Paul predicted that the uprisings of Arab Spring/Wisconsin/Ohio/Occupy would end like 1848, with the bad guys still in charge.

Maybe so. For now.

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Submitted by jawbone on

Syriza because it's leader is young, energetic, and knows how to motivate people. WaPo calls his party radical.

WaPo on results with 82.5% of vote counted:

No one has enough seats to form a government, which requires 151 seats. Syriza refuses to join with ND because it will not accept the bailout, and, per NPR, PASOK has so far refused to join ND.

Golden Dawn is anathema to the other

New Democracy has 30% for 130 seats.

Syriza (strongly anti-bailout) has 26.6 percent and 71 seats.

Socialist PASOK (pro-bailout) has 12.5 percent and 33 seats.

Golden Dawn (nationalist anti-immigrant) -- 6.9% and 18 seats.

Democratic [Left -- 6.1 percent and 18 seats.

It will be up to ND to try to form a majority; if it fails, then Syriza gets to try. PASOK is now urging a unity government of the top 4 parties.

Ought to be interesting.

However, Obama has congratulated the Greek people on choosing to bend over and take it again (by giving ND the majority).

It could also be considered a victory for the fear mongering austerians in Europe and in the US as well.

If Robama get their way, we will all be Greeks -- the post-imposition of austerity Greeks. And Romney has already said he will sell off our national natural treasures to the highest bidders and deepest diggers/drillers/environmental fuckups. Austerity measures have led to Greece effectively losing its national health system, and Romney is hell bent on reprivatizing as much as he can of our health care system.

Question:
Is the top vote winning party awarded extra seats for being in first place? Because the numbers don't compute for me.

Update: From Ekathimerini paper, Independent Greeks, strongly anti-bailout, won about 7+% of votes. It would not likely join ND, but Democratic Left's leader sees a need for a coalition government.

Also, just now on local CBS NYC city news, ND was given over half the votes...huh? 20 point swing in just hours?

Jessica Yogini's picture
Submitted by Jessica Yogini on

Also, PASOK says it will not join any coalition without Syriza. Whether or not PASOK will stand by that, I don't know.
I am guessing from circumstances, that PASOK does not want to take responsibility for continuing the anti-Greece austerity program unless Syriza gets dirtied by it too. Because if PASOK does go into a coalition without Syriza, that will send even more PASOK voters over to Syriza.

Jessica Yogini's picture
Submitted by Jessica Yogini on

The conservative New Democracy party has come in first place, barely, but what they have won at most is the right to set up an extremely weak coalition Quisling government that will attempt to continue to carry out the European program against Greece. They will only grow more unpopular and more and more Greeks will come to the conclusion that whatever is the worst the European 1% can do to them has already been done.
If those demanding austerity from Greece had the slightest belief that it could actually help the Greek economy, they would be rushing to take care of things like basic medical imports, import insurance, and other aspects of international trade that are already being taken away from Greece.
This article from the Guardian is worth reading:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun...

DCblogger's picture
Submitted by DCblogger on

is the collapse of Pasok. People expect socialist parties to protect ordinary people, when they sell out, they are discarded. This happened in Canada, it has now happened in Greece and it could happen here.

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on

... don't get into the government coalition again. That would be bad.

Also, I can't help but wonder (with some other NC commenters) whether private polling was done in the period between the election and when polls can no longer be published. A humongous arbitrage opportunity.

Submitted by lbjdem on

Syriza has said they won't attempt to form a government, even if the New Democrats fail. They seem quite content to let ND and others hang themselves doing Angela Merkel's bidding by passing additional austerity measures.

I suspect PASOK may be more posturing (for more or specific cabinet seats) than serious when they claim they won't join a ND-PASOK coalition without 'grand unity' and the presence of Syrzia.

My guess is there's about a week or two before the crap hits the fan, if ND isn't able to form a government. At that point, it will be too late to meet the ECB's schedule for austerity programs, and they will have to either amend their demands, or allow Greece to default when they don't get the next round of bailout payments.

Make no mistake. A Greek default will send Spain's and Italy's sovereign debt spread into double digits, if other events or lack thereof don't do that independently before then.

If ND and others do form a pro-austerity government, begin marking the days before the next MP revolt. Such policies won't let that government last out of the year. What was that line from the TV show? "All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again."

Turlock