Part of the pro-bankster coalition deal in Greece was that elections would be held in April 2012, that is: within two months, more or less. But naturally the continuous sell-off of the nation by the current leadership has taken a toll, eroding the support of the parties conforming the coalition: the Socialist Panhelenic Party (PASOK), New Democracy (ND) and the far-right Christian-Fundamentalist neofascist bloc LAOS (National Orthodox Rally). The latter broke ranks this past week but looks unlikely to be able to benefit too much, at most stealing some voters to ND.
The conservatives of New Democracy, which already took a serious beating in the 2009 elections, are still bleeding out and can't expect to get more than 28% of the votes (33% in 2009) and will more likely be around 24% (min. 19%)
The social-democrats of PASOK are set to collapse. The Papandreu dynastic party gathered 44% of the vote in 2009 but can't expect today to get more than 14% (more like 11% and maybe as little as 8%).
As mentioned above, LAOS is stuck in voters' support (4.5-6.9%, from a 5.6% in 2009), so who is benefiting from the collapse of the bourgeois dual single party system?
The Left. However the Greek Left is wide and divided. Ignoring the Greens (stuck in their share of 3.5% of the vote) and very minor parties, there used to be two blocs at the left of PASOK: the old school (Stalinist) Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the new school Communist Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and its breakaway faction by the right the Democratic Left (DIMAR).
This DIMAR party is the greatest uncertainty because they are bound to become kingmakers in the new parliament. They claim to be Democratic Socialist (in theory at the left of Social-Democracy but in practice probably no difference at all) and promote reformist strategies (not revolutionary ones) within Europeanism.
In practice this probably means that they are just waiting to gather enough bargaining tokens (votes) to form a bourgeois coalition government, extending the current one in new form into the immediate future. It surely means a new Papademos government with their support (or something of the like).
But in theory at least they may have the possibility to lean to the left and form an ample Left coalition government with Syriza and KKE (and maybe the small Green party). Together they are at the very edge of getting sufficient majority in the Greek Parliament (approx. 41.5% of the popular vote needed and together the Left parties, not counting PASOK, reach as much as 47% in some of the latest polls - and growing).
Can this happen? In truth I do not know. The situation of Greece does not allow for intermediate ways: either they bow to the demands of the Troika or they break away, declaring unilateral bankruptcy and having to use quite radical socialist measures to keep the country stable.
Of course NATO would not allow such thing to happen and would instigate military coups and/or border conflicts with Turkey (an all-out invasion is unlikely but not impossible) but let us for a moment assume that this does not happen and that Greece is irrationally allowed to declare bankruptcy and nationalize at will in a bubble of sorts.
So let's dream awake a bit and assume that DIMAR, SYRIZA and KKE can join forces and form a serious consistent genuinely Socialist government ready to at least try a Icelandic option of sorts by means of declaring unilateral bankruptcy. And let's assume that all that happens is that the Council of the European Union freaks out and suspends Greece membership in EU (or even expels it altogether), maybe embargoing its foreign assets or whatever.
That would be the KKE or Stalinist option of socialism in one state, which is hardly sustainable but of course there you have Cuba. Nowadays life in Cuba is probably enviable for a growing number of Greeks, who are being dispossessed of all, even their dignity as citizens, workers and human beings, in the unholy name of Usury.
Are there other options? Not at the moment. If and when the crisis and revolutionary awareness extends to other parts of Europe (what will probably happen eventually, maybe soon but just not yet), then Greece will have other choices but right now it's between a rock (IMF-EU blackmail) and a hard place (determined Socialist policies in isolation - other than that of worker and popular solidarity organizations elsewhere).
Would it be my decision, I have no doubt: Socialism in one state (provisional solution) and arming the people for territorial self-defense.
But it's not, so my forecast is that DIMAR will form a pro-bankster second coalition government with ND and PASOK, maybe even still led by that pathetic Papademos. However the IMF-EU blackmail will be harder and harder to swallow, with growing unrest in the streets (even more!), and within a year or two (maybe just a few months) the coalition will collapse with its members suffering from even more erosion in terms of popular support.
Then we will see: the revolutionary exit is the only likely exit for Greece sooner than later (and the Greek People has demonstrated that they have the strength to push it ahead) but how exactly it will materialize: earlier or later, in isolation or in a larger European revolutionary wave, whether it will trigger a military reaction by NATO or what... all that is very hard to forecast. It is just clear that the path set for Greece at Brussels is doomed to not work at all.
Note: an option is that elections may not take place until legally demanded (c. October 2013), allowing for the constitutional reforms demanded by Brussels to take place. But further delays can only cause further erosion of the coalition members, further growth of the Left (voting intention but also popular convictions) and further instability.
Maju,
ReplyDeleteYou are in denial. Have you actually read detailed accounts of Russia from, say, 1905 up to 1936?
It seems as if you hadn't a clue. You are re-inventing what people such as Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky were saying back then, trying to move forward as Marx's idea of communism was not going to materialize then (and never will). But now not even the power take over of the Russians is likely to happen anywhere in Europe.
When I read the communists, I really see very strong parallels with the Jehova witnesses or the Pentecostals: the end is nigh, etc, etc. And apparently you forget how many times we have gone through these periods, or perhaps you never knew there were such times.
About life in Cuba: you haven't got a single clue about life there. One thing is to dream about the revolution having euros in your pocket and another to live in Cuba.
Cuba's pseudo-revolution (nothing but the military dictatorship of a group of old men) hasn't crumbled down because the military in Venezuela still provide the money to them.
Once that is gone, everything of that will crumble away.
What you say isn't easy to follow. What did Lenin and Trotsky said "back then" that I am ignoring?
ReplyDeleteAll I know is that Greeks can't follow this path of death and destruction imposed by the IMF and Brussels and that, unlike other more sheepishly people, a lot of them would like to try their luck at socialism.
There's no hope for Greeks in the capitalist system (neither for many other peoples incidentally, a rapidly growing number it seems): even with the IMF-EU economic fantasies, the prospects of Greece are disastrous for a decade or rather two.
The choice of Greece is simple: Haiti or Cuba. They are not large enough to hope for anything else.
And about Cuba, it's you who is in denial. Would it be as you claim, then the system would have crumbled long ago (or do you think the USA would ignore any opportunity to get rid of socialism right outside its borders?) If the system in Cuba stands it is because it provides a decent living for all (and not just some): homes, healthcare, food, well planned protection from natural disasters, environment and now it's even jumping to alternative energies.
Cubans are from content to very satisfied, excepted a bunch of liberal fanatics, who just dream of barbies and nonsense, a consumerism fantasy. There's critical thought in Cuba, sometimes frustration maybe but there is very little anti-communism.
And that is because, unlike Yoani and you, they do not compare with the upper classes Connecticut but with the real people of Haiti, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, etc. Or even the poor people of Louisiana abandoned by the authorities to hurricanes and oil corporations.
Why don't you quit Belgium and emigrate to Greece? You're not living in Venezuela, Cuba nor Greece but in the economic core of Europe and one of the few such areas on Earth.
And even that is set to shatter this decade. Capitalism is an exhausted model that can only offer vampirism.
I tell you again: if it weren't because of the petrodollars the Venezuelan military caste is giving to the Castro brothers, that dictatorship would have crumbled about 10 years ago. Once Chávez falls, Cuba's Castrismo is gone, gone.
ReplyDeleteNow: the funny thing is you talk about "socialism" and a country X when it suits you. One day you will have to make up your mind and think whether Cuba, the USSR in times of Stalin and other systems you sometimes praise as a socialist form of sorts were or are socialist at all.
About where I am: thanks God I don't have a bunch of idiots in a government who pretend to represent "the people" and who like Lenin think they have the bloody right to tell the rest of the population how "the people" have to think.
And because of that I can move to whatever country I want.
Why don't you go to Cuba instead of spending your time in Spain?
By the way: Cuba before Castro was way better off than any of those countries you mentioned. Sure, it was the US's brothel...now it is the world's brothel but people wave those red flags you fancy and they pretend to be socialist...what a joke!
You tell me that but you are an extremist liberal, why do I have to believe you?
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know Venezuela gives oil, not "petrodollars" and Cuba gives medical experts, which Venezuela lacks and needs. It's a fair deal.
In any case AFAIK Cuba is working hard in the energy of the future, solar, what gives me hopes about continuity of the best of it. Cuban revolution is still conditioned by Stalinism but it's also post-Stalinist in many ways.
"One day you will have to make up your mind and think whether Cuba, the USSR in times of Stalin and other systems you sometimes praise as a socialist form of sorts were or are socialist at all".
I use the term socialism for those kind of economic systems in which state (or otherwise collectivist) planning and management of the economy is dominant and private property and benefits are minor or at least very secondary. So yes, they are.
"thanks God"
Ha, superstitious!
"I don't have a bunch of idiots in a government who pretend to represent "the people""
Oh, like in "democratic" Europe, where despised members of the twin party system monopolize elections, parliaments and governments? They do pretend to "represent the people" and even call themselves "popular party" (one side of the coin) and what not.
"Why don't you go to Cuba instead of spending your time in Spain?"
First of all, I do not live in Spain. Would I live in Spain I might have to go to Cuba or like the many Spaniards now emigrating to random sites like Norway and finding no jobs, of course, ending up as vagabonds.
Spain is collapsing as we speak, I understand. It may take some years but the social situation is critical and, without any welfare, people is desperate.
In any case Cuba is not buoyant, partly because of the blockade (it is a small state) but it's a zillion times better than Greece for the common citizen in most aspects nowadays. And probably also better than Spain. People do not look for food in trash containers in Cuba, you know that, right?
Whatever the case, with 43 years on my back, I'm too old to start anew. I'll die in Bilbao or elsewhere in the Basque Country no matter what. Capitalists must be crazy if they want people starting anew every few years, specially when we reach certain age. It does not work that way.