It was 2011 that Greece erupted in epic protests over economic conditions and government imposed austerity programs. Since that time, Greece has moved to recover yet that recovery has not proven effective. Chancellor Angela Merkel has threatened Greece with several conditions including removing Greece from the European Union. Over the weekend, Greece completed their election cycle with the an anti-austerity party known as the Syriza party prevailing. It is important to know that Greece is in a tailspin as noted by the party that placed third in the number of votes. A very dangerous new contour is emerging in Greece and it is filtering through Europe, the Golden Dawn Party.
Extreme right party headed for 3rd place in Greek election
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The specter of Neo-Nazism is no longer haunting Greece. It looks like it is here to stay.
The extreme right, anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party, which has Nazi roots, appears headed for a third-place finish in Sunday’s election. Its showing comes despite the fact that the party’s leader and most of its lawmakers are behind bars, facing charges of participating in a “criminal organization” accused of murders, brutal attacks on migrants and others, extortion and arson.
With more than 90 percent of the voting precincts reporting, Golden Dawn was receiving 6.3 percent of the vote, narrowly leading the centrist Potami (“River”) with 6.04 percent. Both parties exceeded the 3 percent minimum required to gain seats in the 300-member parliament — with each forecast to win 17 seats.
Its share of the vote doesn’t match the 9.39 percent it received in last June’s European Parliament election in which Golden Dawn also finished third. It also trails the 6.92 percent won in the previous national election, in June 2012.
But considering the exposure of a series of crimes allegedly committed by its members, including the Sept. 2013 murder of a leftist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas, the result obtained Sunday may be even more significant. This is no longer merely an angry protest vote, a one-off voters’ tiff with “corrupt politicians.” This is an established vote and a hardened electorate.
“They can no longer plead ignorance. They have dipped their hands in blood,” Communist lawmaker Liana Kanelli commented on Sunday’s result.
Golden Dawn leader Nikos Mihaloliakos and his top lieutenants were not free to campaign ahead of the election, since they were behind bars. They were free to stand as candidates because they have not yet gone to trial. Some of them, including Mihaloliakos, may soon be set free when their 18-month maximum pre-trial detention limit is reached.
In a taped statement Sunday, Mihaloliakos celebrated his party’s performance.
“We achieved this great victory despite the fact that we could not be guaranteed an equal and so-called democratic election as the regime likes to call it, shunned by all (media), facing mudslinging and slander from all sides … having to campaign through a payphone. We have a fresh mandate … everyone fought to keep Golden Dawn away and they lost. Golden Dawn won,” Mihalioliakos said in his taped message.
In a further twist, if the radical left Syriza party, the winner of the election, fails to achieve an outright majority, a prospect still possible early Monday, it might fail to form a government and return the mandate, given to it by the President of the Republic. In that case, the second party takes up the mandate and, if it fails in turn, the third party does. The prospect of a handcuffed Mihaloliakos, escorted by police to meet the Greek president to be asked to try to form a government, sends jitters throughout the political class. And, if it gets the chance, Golden Dawn is certain to exploit the occasion for maximum effect to ridicule the democracy they despise and whose benefits they are trying to exploit. *** Syriza ran on a single issue: reversing Greece’s reforms, which had been the quid pro quo for the assistance Greece has received from the IMF, EC and ECB (known collectively as the “troika”) over the past several years. It is hard to see how Mr. Tsipras could change course dramatically and say that he is planning to honor Greece’s promises to the troika. Attention will now shift to the response of the troika to Syriza’s victory and its policy reversal.
Will the troika respond with a suspension of future assistance and a refusal to roll over existing subsidized debts? Judging from the statements of Mr. Draghi and European political leaders, it appears so. All current indications are that the troika will not accede to a reversal on Greek promises, which will mean an unavoidable Greek government default in a matter of two months. ECB refusal to roll over debt is also likely to produce a Greek banking crisis, as depositors recognize that the withdrawal of ECB assistance to Greece’s banks will mean that Greek banks will be unable to continue to operate at their current debt levels. In anticipation of the withdrawal of troika support, economic theory suggests that depositors should begin to run Greek banks preemptively. How much immediate pressure depositors bring to bear on Greek banks is hard to know.
Mr. Tsipras has said that he wants to stay in the euro zone, but if the troika refuses to continue sending money his way, then he is likely to have no choice but to suspend Greek banks’ convertibility into euros, default on Greek debt payments (more than three-quarters of which are owed to the troika), leave the euro zone to finance his deficits by printing a new domestic currency, and re-denominate bank deposits, loans and contractual wages into that new domestic currency (otherwise, mass insolvencies of borrowers, employers, and banks would result, as euro-denominated obligations will be much harder to fulfill). And if Greek depositors become sufficiently uneasy, Mr. Tsipras may not even have the chance to climb down from his pre-election rhetoric, even in the unlikely event that he comes to his senses; after all, once a run on the banks occurs, Greece could be forced out of the euro within a matter of hours rather than months.
