Greek Voters Punish 2 Main Parties for Economic Collapse
Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Political leader of the far-right Golden Dawn party, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, spoke during a press conference on Sunday.
By RACHEL DONADIO and NIKI KITSANTONIS
Published: May 6, 2012
ATHENS — Greek voters appeared to radically redraw the political map on
Sunday, bolstering the far left and neo-Nazi right in a wave of protest
against the dominant political parties they blame for the country’s
economic collapse.
Alexandros Vlachos/European Pressphoto Agency
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos cast his vote at a polling station in central Athens on Sunday.
The parliamentary elections were the first time that Greece’s
foreign loan agreement had been put to a democratic test, and the
outcome appeared clear: a rejection of the terms of the bailout and a fragmentation of the vote
so severe that the front-runner is expected to have extreme difficulty
in forming a government, let alone one that can either enforce or
renegotiate the terms of the bailout.
The elections were seen as a pivotal test, determining both the
country’s future in Europe and its prospects for economic recovery and
the outcome, along with that in France, could resonate far beyond
Europe, possibly leading to more upheaval in the euro zone. The early
results were also a clear rebuke to European leaders that their strategy
for Greece had failed.
An exit poll made public just before 9 p.m. nearly two hours after the
polls closed, indicated that center-right New Democracy party was in
first place with 19 to 20.5 percent of the vote, much less than the 34
percent it won in 2009. But in a major shift, the Socialists, who
dominated for decades, won 44 percent of the vote in 2009 and were in
power when Greece asked for foreign aid in 2010, appeared to have 13 to
14 percent of the vote, putting them behind the Coalition of the Radical
Left, called Syriza, which opposes Greece’s agreement with its foreign
lenders. Syriza appeared to be drawing 15.5 to 17 percent of the vote.
A projection by the Interior Ministry based on votes counted at a
quarter of the country’s 20,000 polling stations broadly reflected the
results of the exit poll.
The two main parties could still form a coalition if the findings of the
exit poll, which was conducted by several firms on behalf of four
television channels, are reflected in the official results.
Representatives of the two main parties were quick to express their
opposition to the prospect of a second round of elections.
The Socialists’ leader, Evangelos Venizelos, called for a national unity
government, saying that a coalition with only the Socialists and New
Democracy would not have legitimacy.
Mr. Venizelos said that Sunday was an “exceptionally painful day” for
the Socialists. He added that the results in France showed that the
“balance” in Europe was shifting and that Greek political parties that
had said there was an alternative to the loan agreement had misled
voters. “God of Greece, help us,” he said.
Exit polls also showed the far-right Golden Dawn party, whose symbol
resembles the swastika and whose members perform Nazi salutes at
rallies, attracting 5 to 8 percent of the vote, enough to enter
Parliament for the first time. The ultimate expression of a protest
vote, the party has gained ground by campaigning on the streets of
Athens, where many residents fear a sharp rise in illegal immigration and where politicians from mainstream parties have had trouble walking for fear of violent attacks from angry voters.
In a triumphant televised statement issued after the exit polls, the
party’s leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, pledged to “fight the memorandum of
the junta inside and outside Parliament,” a reference to the country’s
debt deal with creditors.
As he stood outside a polling station in the downtown Athens
neighborhood of Agios Panteleimonas, where in the past decade the
increase in the number of illegal immigrants from South Asia and Africa
has changed the texture of the area, Sotirios Dimos, 43, a post office
employee, said that he had always supported the Socialists, but on
Sunday he voted for Golden Dawn for the first time. “The Socialists were
incapable of doing anything,” he said.
He said he was upset about the economy and illegal immigration and was
not concerned that the group’s neo-Nazi roots would lead to fascism in
Greece. “Do you think a republic with a strong educated population can
lose their freedom so easily?” he asked.
The next government in Athens, inheriting a deepening recession and
facing the likelihood of social unrest, will have to enforce a loan
agreement with its creditors — the European Commission, European Central
Bank and International Monetary Fund. The deal stipulates slashing
$15.5 billion from the state budget over the next two years and
completing a crucial bank recapitalization.
Yet fierce opposition to the bailout terms — tax increases and wage cuts that have seen Greece’s
gross national product drop 20 percent since 2009 and unemployment hit
21 percent — has led to the implosion of the Socialist and New Democracy
parties, and the rise of fringe parties on both the right and the left
that oppose the loan deal.
Related
-
France Selects Hollande as President (May 7, 2012)
-
Faltering German Party, a Coalition Partner to Merkel, Faces an Electoral Test (May 6, 2012)
Anger at the wage and pension cuts imposed by the two main parties, who
governed in an uneasy coalition after the previous Socialist
administration collapsed in November, was evident Sunday at a polling
station in Neos Kosmos, a middle-class district near central Athens.
Evgenia Vogiatzi, a 45-year-old teacher and a lifelong Socialist, said
that Greece was “in a state of enslavement” that had led her to support
the Communist Party, which backs a return to the drachma, Greece’s old
currency before it adopted the euro.
“I’ve had my salary cut 30 percent, I’m paying taxes through the nose,
and they’re talking about more cuts,” Ms. Vogiatzi said. “If that’s what
it takes to stay in Europe, I don’t want Europe.”
In the upper middle-class Psychiko neighborhood in Athens, many
supporters of the Socialist party, known here as Pasok, said they had
voted for radical-left Syriza for the first time, in protest. “I voted
in anger,” said Evangelia Grillaki, 65, a retired florist. “We feel
1,000 percent betrayed. The only people who voted for Pasok are either
jerks or vested interests.”
The biggest winner in the elections appeared to be Syriza, a coalition
of leftist parties founded in 2004, which included splinter groups from
Greece’s more hard-line Communist Party. Its campaign slogan was “They
chose without us, we’re moving on without them,” and it appeared to
receive the bulk of the Socialist protest vote. Led by Alexis Tsipras,
an energetic 38-year-old, the party is in favor of Greece remaining in
the euro zone and the European Union, unlike the Communist Party, but has opposed the loan agreement.
Describing the elections as “probably the most critical ever,” Prime Minister Lucas Papademos,
a technocrat installed in November to help Greece push through changes
promised to creditors by the Socialists, called for voters to think
about the implications of their decision. “We must all think carefully
as we are not only deciding who will govern, we are determining the
country’s course for decades,” he said.
One possible outcome could be a government composed of small parties
opposed to the onerous terms of a second debt deal hashed out between
the previous government and creditors in February in exchange for about
$170 billion euros in loans and a restructuring of the country’s
privately held debt.
In any case, with up to 10 parties expected to enter Greece’s 300-seat
Parliament it will be difficult to form a stable government.
The prospect of an administration at loggerheads with Greece’s creditors
has rattled European officials who issued stern warnings ahead of the
voting. In a statement that dominated most Greek media on the eve of
elections, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said Greece
would “have to bear the consequences” if its new government failed to
honor pledges to creditors.
“The future government in Greece must abide by the country’s
commitments,” Mr. Schäuble said Friday, reflecting broader concern in
Europe about the likely impact of a Greek exit from the euro zone on
larger economies such as Spain and Italy.
Representatives of the European Union
and International Monetary Fund, expected back in Athens by June to
discuss another $15 billion in spending cuts for the next two years,
have struck a similar note, saying they expect the new government to
meet the “main goals” of the agreement.
Although the two main parties have reassured the creditors that they
will keep to the goals, they have also promised in campaign rallies to
ease the burden on austerity weary Greeks, fearful of stoking social
discontent that has led to violence. The conservative leader Antonis
Samaras has vowed to cut taxes and increase low-level pensions. His
socialist rival, Mr. Venizelos, the former finance minister who
negotiated Greece’s deal with creditors, has pledged to spread spending
cuts over the next three years rather than two.
For the moment, austerity appears to have taken a back seat to politics.
Greece is spending $65 million to hold elections. The authorities say
this is half the cost of the last elections in 2009. But with a hung
Parliament a distinct possibility, new elections, and more election
spending, are not out of the question.
No comments:
Post a Comment