Last week, the Greek parliament failed to elect a candidate to fill the ceremonial role of president, triggering early elections that will take place Jan. 25. The fall of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ government, a coalition between his right-wing New Democracy party and the social-democratic PASOK, followed a period of deadlock in negotiations with the country’s “Troika” of creditors.
The Greek constitution mandates that the president be elected in no more than three rounds of voting by the parliament. In the first two rounds, the candidate must get 200 of 300 votes, but in the third round the threshold drops to 180. ND member Stavros Dimas was nominated by the coalition but never received more than 168 votes.
Now, the election campaign is underway, dominated by ND and the main opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). SYRIZA was for many years a small coalition of various leftists parties, including communists, but since skyrocketing to prominence during the 2012 election has adopted a formally unitary organizational form. SYRIZA is leading in the opinion polls, and the stock and bond markets crashed after Samaras’ failure to secure Dimas’ election.
Weak economy complicates political crisis
The Troika is composed of the European Central Bank, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. They have financed two bailouts for Greece since the economic crisis began, which were conditioned on the implementation of a brutal regime of austerity referred to as the Memorandum. Austerity takes the form of budget cuts to social services, the privatization of public companies and property, slashing of pensions, deregulation, and the general degradation of poor and working people’s living conditions.
The bailout money is dispersed in installments after a team of inspectors from the Troika approves the major decisions of the Greek government for implementing austerity and any necessary modifications. The final installment of the bailout has yet to be released, and negotiations about the transition out of the Memorandum stand unresolved.
Prime Minister Samaras bases his party’s campaign on a narrative of years of suffering bearing fruit in an economic recovery. While the Greek economy returned to growth in 2014 after six years of recession, the notion that the situation is stable is simply false. It may not be as bad as it once was, but society remains devastated.
As a consequence of the Troika and offensive of the Greek capitalist class against social rights, workers are suffering under deepening poverty, homelessness and hunger. The official unemployment rate remains over 25 percent, while about half of young people are officially unemployed. The Greek credit system is paralyzed by a huge number of non-performing loans, which account for about one-third of the total.
In months of deadlocked talks with the Troika, Greek officials have insisted that they will be able to meet the budgetary targets set out in the Memorandum. The Troika, however, believes that it will fall billions of dollars short and is pushing Greece to implement further austerity. Negotiations are effectively suspended pending the outcome of the election.
The situation across all countries that use the euro currency—the Eurozone—is fragile. The economy is basically at a standstill, with growth in the third quarter registering at 0.2 percent. A 3 percent growth rate is generally considered healthy for “developed economies.” Inflation is well below the European Central Bank’s target of 2 percent, standing at just 0.3 percent in November, and outright deflation threatens. The underlying slump in investment shows little sign of improving, and the ECB is on the verge of beginning a highly controversial program of life support to the financial sector called quantitative easing—buying up government bonds to keep interest rates low and stave off a deflationary spiral.
Greece is the weak link of the Eurozone, and political instability there can have an outsized effect on the entire region. In the past, it has threatened the very existence of the common currency.
SYRIZA pledges loyalty to the system
Sections of the left in the United States and around the world are excited about the prospect of a victory by SYRIZA, believing that a SYRIZA-led government would implement a series of measures that would effectively counter the devastating austerity and even lead to basic social change.
This hope, however, is misplaced. As they come within reach of control of the government, Alexis Tsipras and the rest of the SYRIZA leadership have been bending over backwards to show that they seek only to reform, not overthrow, the capitalist system.
From the Bank of Greece to the Clinton Global Initiative, SYRIZA leaders have been putting in face time with the permanent staff of the capitalist establishment to assure them that there will be no radical change in the event that they win the next election. Even former ND Defense Minister and current European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos has publicly expressed openness to the idea of an ND-SYRIZA coalition government.
One theme of this campaign is that a SYRIZA government would not act independently, only seek to renegotiate terms with Greece’s creditors. Giorgos Stathakis, a SYRIZA member of parliament, summarized their approach as seeking “a comprehensive renegotiation of the debt, without unilateral action.” In a recent interview, John Milios, SYRIZA’s head of economic policy, reiterated this position while trying to walk back the people’s expectations: “[W]e’re not talking about war, we’re talking about negotiation. And that could take a long time.”
SYRIZA’s economic policy is framed in traditional social-democratic terms, arguing that a shift away from austerity will be a win-win situation for both workers and capitalists. This has a highly disorienting effect that by no means encourages the oppressed to confront their oppressors. In a December interview, Tsipras argued: “A SYRIZA victory will break the bad spell and liberate markets. It will create a feeling of security.” Real revolutionaries seek to heighten contradictions and liberate the people, not the market.
While the party rose to prominence calling for a “government of the left” that will “tear up” the memorandum, the centerpiece of SYRIZA’s current program is what they call a European Debt Conference. In this fantasy scenario, the imperialist states of the Eurozone will convene a summit that would forgive a large portion of Greece’s debt. This would be accompanied by a “European New Deal” of public investment to spur consumption and revitalize the region’s economy.
The underlying assumption is that the process of European integration, which has as a central component the euro single currency, is a progressive development that can benefit the masses of people, given the right leadership. In fact, the “European project” seeks to pool the influence of imperialist powers and serves as a tool to attack social rights won over years of struggle. Nevertheless, Tsipras has stated that his goal is to “save the country in the euro” and that “Greece needs Europe, and Europe needs Greece.”
There are some areas of policy that have traditionally been considered off-limits to partisan political maneuvers in a “gentleman’s pact” of sorts between ruling-class political forces. In the United States, for instance, there is a saying regarding foreign policy: “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” SYRIZA, though basing itself on sections of the working class and middle class, has indicated several times that it will honor this arrangement.
On Dec. 1, Tsipras met with Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos, also the leader of PASOK and former finance minister during the adoption of the devastating Second Memorandum with the Troika, to discuss international affairs. After the meeting, Tsipras said, “I feel that on issues of foreign policy there needs to be a national strategic plan [that] should not be affected by domestic rivalries.” After attending a briefing at the Ministry of Defense in October, he stated, “We assured the military chiefs that we have full trust in them, because the state will have continuity and the security of our country is top priority.” Tsipras’s promise that “the state will have continuity” exposes the core of SYRIZA’s political orientation.
It is widely recognized that SYRIZA will probably not win enough seats in parliament to govern alone, and may seek to form a coalition government with the Independent Greeks party. Independent Greeks is a right-wing populist party that espouses racist, anti-immigrant views.
While recognizing that electoral politics is an important arena of struggle, revolutionaries have often rejected the idea of participating in the executive arm of the bourgeois state. While the legislative arm is a prominent platform that can be used to spread socialist ideas, the executive administers the repressive apparatus of cops, the military, prisons, and so on.
As SYRIZA’s rapid move to the right since coming to center stage after the 2012 election shows, being in or close to this position can have a major moderating influence and encourage opportunism. SYRIZA’s decentralized organizational model that deemphasizes party discipline is also a contributing factor.
A period of political uncertainty, instability and danger
While the contest between ND and SYRIZA for first place—which comes with a 50-seat bonus in parliament—is the main feature of the election, there are several other factors to watch. Days after the early elections were called, former Prime Minister George Papandreou announced that he was leaving PASOK and forming his own party. Democratic Left, a more moderate split from SYRIZA that was briefly part of Samaras’ coalition, is collapsing and will likely not clear the 3 percent threshold to win seats in parliament. A new center-left party called “The River” will be competing in its first parliamentary election, and some polls show it coming in third place.
The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), which advocates the revolutionary transformation of society and the socialization of all major industry, is intervening in the election. Outside the electoral arena, the party follows a strategy of building a “People’s Alliance” of the oppressed and middle strata of society. The KKE is projected to modestly improve on its results in the previous election. While it has a base of tens of thousands of members with deep roots in the working class, the Communist Party has not been able to achieve a breakthrough. The KKE has been waging a sharp campaign against SYRIZA’s opportunism and its influence on the mass movement.
Neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn looks set to maintain about the same level of 5-10 percent support as last election, but it is unclear whether it will be allowed to compete. Most of the party’s top leadership is either in prison or awaiting trial following a government crackdown after GD members murdered anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fissas. However, there are sections of the Greek ruling class and state apparatus that sympathize with the neo-Nazis, including in the police forces and the Orthodox Church.
The far right will pose a serious threat to the revolutionary and progressive forces if the crisis of Greek society continues to deepen. History teaches that a united front of these forces will be needed to overcome that threat, alleviate the crisis, and lead to the ultimate solution—a workers’ revolution and socialism.
The results of the Greek elections will be felt far beyond the country’s borders. If SYRIZA is able to win the election and form a government, a period of sharp tension may occur in the summer, when the government will need to repay 11.4 billion euros of debt.
