Laiki Enotita (Popular Unity or People's Union) is the name of the new party that will fight for the most genuine Syriza vote. There are no opinion polls yet on how this new party may fare but it is clear that, judging on the June and July data, Syriza as a whole gathered more than 40% of popular support, twice or more what the conservative New Democracy has, and seven times what smaller parties can gather.
Within the former Syriza's bench in Parliament, they have at least 25 seats, being formally now the third largest party of Greece (displacing the much smaller nazi party to fourth position). Their presence withing the crumbling Syriza middle and low ranks is or was no doubt much stronger but Tsipras manipulated the party's institutions to delay decisions and now has forced elections before a congress can be elected and meet.
The enigma is how will the vote split in the snap elections of September: will most Syriza supporters back Tsipras for his alleged "charisma" and "doing the best he could" (so he claims) or will them demand a clear-cut anti-Troika program, much as they did in the July referendum?
My impression is that former Syriza voters may well be roughly evenly split, between the fearful, who will back Tsipras as "lesser evil" and the outraged, who will not want anymore of him, his lies and his betrayals. If this hunch is correct, then Tsipras will only be able to form government with the conservative New Democracy (and some lesser partners), intiating a four-year term of surely catastrophic third pro-Troika coalition cabinet, with very reinforced left-wing opposition (but opposition nevertheless).
A key issue will be which of the three contenders will get the first post, which, by grace of the Greek electoral law (otherwise very proportional), gets 50 extra seats (out of 350). However, unless Popular Unity manages to get most of former Syriza backers, it will be unable to form government and pro-Troika parties, now possibly led by Tsipras, will have to form a colorful coalition in order to lick their masters' boots properly.
As for Yanis Varoufakis nobody knows yet, not even himself possibly. He has repeatedly stated that he meant to be in politics for long but it is unclear if he will join (and be accepted) within the ranks of the new party (whose members probably feel he is way too moderate, even if respectable). He won't be included for sure in the Tsipras list because he broke the party's discipline. Clearly Varoufakis would be an asset for the new party in terms of attracting votes but it is not so clear if the Popular Unity program, which seems now persuaded of the need to evacuate the Eurozone and even the EU itself maybe may fit with the Europeanist feelings of the former Finance Minister.
I reckon this new party will receive much less votes. What will you say then? That the People are fascists? That the elections were rigged?
ReplyDeleteGo spam your fascist media. We don't need your ilk here.
DeleteDo you even know what "fascism" means? I mock about your use of that word in my comment and you immediately respond with "fascist media".
DeleteThe curious thing is that it is precisely your behaviour and that of those you support the closest to fascism we can get these days.
For over 100 years people with your attitude and using that "communism" label have been predicting "the end is nigh", just like the Jehova witnesses do.
What is worse: time after time, when your favourite regime falls apart of becomes undefendable you react by saying "that was not the real thing, these were not the real communists".
And time after time you have trouble understanding what fascism is...even though you act in an authoritarian, nationalist way...which is the definition of what a fascist does.
Tratad de ser un poco más originales. Tenéis un siglo con lo mismo.
Saludos
I know well what fascism means: I come, partly, from a family with very strong fascist convictions. My grandfather's brother was minister under Mussolini at Saló, my grandfather himself came to Spain as genuine volunteer with the Italian fascist corps, and that's how he met my grandmother who was a local fascist who admired Goicoechea, the traitor who crossed the lines with the blueprints of the iron belt of Bilbao. After WWII they had to exile themselves from Italy and that's how they came to Bilbao (again in the case of my granny).
DeleteThey used to live in the same street as Santiago Brouard, both being physicians, but while Brouard was murdered in his office by a fascist death squad (led by the PSOE of Felipe González), my grandfather was never ever threatened.
I know well what fascism is: I was educated in that ideology. My father's family was not formally fascist but they were close enough (Christian Democrats) that in practical terms there was not much of a difference. My only "liberal" influence in my family was my (in-law) uncle who was socialist and atheist and, very smoothly, just followed totally different rules, which were eye-opening for me in my early teens.
Fascism is claiming that the PSUV is not ruling Venezuela democratically for example, something I'm daily bombarded with by media which pretend to be "democratic", fascism is impeding the right to free speech via draconian laws as they do in Spain all the time, every day getting worse and regardless of whether it is the PP or the PSOE who officiates the rituals. Fascism is basically denying the people all rights and instead favoring the empowerment of oligarchic minorities.
As my granny would say: "there are people and persons", she only wanted to deal with the latter, and by "persons" she meant posh, and by "people" the masses, which for her were scum barely above the category of animals. She was not that posh herself, just a teacher daughter of the widow of a policeman, nor as intellectual as she wanted to imagine herself, but she had that kind of aspirations and hated the common people (and had an irrational fear of black people also: internalized racism).
That's fascism: elitism, petty bourgeois values, authoritarianism (because the masses don't deserve other thing than commands, they think), and an imaginary of nationalist myths, heavily made up, to hype the "heroism" and hide the much more real cowardice and murderous nature of their hordes.
So I know well what fascism is and I also know how evil it is. As you can imagine, I mostly avoid my relatives nowadays. Similarly I'd like to avoid people like you, because IMO you are evil like them, even if you don't realize. Selfish, elitist enemies of Humankind.
Maju,
DeleteYour use of logic is absolutely flawed. You live in a world like that of Bush:
Manicheism 100%, there is the good (with you) and the bad (the rest)...at most the stupid in the middle.
Your family was fascist, thus you know what fascism is and you know Venezuela even if you are not capable of analyzing independent sources or, more interestingly, even the sources of Chavismo NOT ADAPTED for European tastes.
You should listen to Diosdado Cabello, who is part of the new oligarchy and who tells people on his TV programme what NGO people to attack in the airport "because they are fascists from the extreme right".
Cabello's brother is minister of Industry and his wife is minister of Tourism.
Maduro's nephews and nieces are all in the government and one of them is the one in charge of the Nation's treasury. Cabello shows illegally recorded conversation of opposition people talking things that would be considered normal talk in Scandinavia but in Venezuela it's "traición a la patria" (actually, against Diosdado's interests).
The current Oligarquia Roja just replaced part of the old one and is even more corrupt than the previous one.
Democracy, apparently you can't understand that, requires several things: first, open, democratic elections and secondly, a state where there is division of power and rule of law. If you cannot accept the division of power, you don't understand what democracy is. In Venezuela the head of the Constitutional Court under Chavismo publicly declared the division of power is bad for the State. Most judges now work with a temporary contract and can be fired any time. There is no division of power. There is no independence of courts.
If you think Chavismo is a democracy, then you should declare Putin to be even a greater democrat. Both regimes came to power democratically. Both could win elections because the oil prices rose not 10%, not 20%, but over 500%.
And Putin definitely has much more real acceptance among the Russians than even Chávez ever had among Venezuelans, even according to official numbers...and let's not talk about Maduro in 2013 or now.
Chávez firstly tried to get to power by using force against a democratically elected government. He killed people, including an innocent girl. That government was corrupt and had committed violations of human rights two years earlier but it was going to be out soon. Chávez never investigated those violation of human rights because they were actually committed mostly by his fellow military friends. He only made the (admittedly corrupt) Pérez responsible for the whole thing, even if there were many more people involved (but then they were Chávez's club).
Manichaeism is not good for the brain.
No, Kepler: you are the one who thinks like the Bush or Aznar of the world... at least as they express their thoughts outwardly (because in the inside only money and power matter for them). Just like them you attack the elected social-democratic government of Venezuela, which has been repeatedly elected in pristine democratic conditions, when even the most extremist mogul-owned media are tolerated (I would close them all and transfer them to the people), when the criminals who organized the pseudo-revolts in the posh districts have been treated with excessive care (I would bring the popular tribunals and then to the guillotine), etc.
DeleteCompared with Europe, say Spain, Venezuela is an exquisite social-democratic country in all aspects: Capitalism is strictly respected (I would expropiate them all), all guarantees for debate and elections are in place even those that excessively favor the rich such as allowing for private media manipulation, etc.
"If you cannot accept the division of power, you don't understand what democracy is".
Democracy comes from Athens, not Washington D.C. (where incidentally there is no democracy at all). Division of power is nonsense beyond a point: the excutive power never was (except in monarchies) really distinct from the legislative branch, so the only thing that would matter here would be the judicial power. And I personally favor the people voting on such matters after fair trial is held, just as with that fascist traitor of Socrates.
You are just like Socrates, working for Sparta and against the People of Athens. And as such IMO it's natural that the People of Athens judge you a traitor and a corruptor of youth.
I am indeed sadly familiar with fascism and fascists always supported Socrates, Plato and all that reactionary scum, who are about the oldest ideologues they can find in history.
You fascist reactionary pro-oligarchic scum in Venezuela are being treated with the most exquisite kind of non-repression. If it'd be Spain and you'd be leftists, you'd be beaten, arrested, heavily fined, held in incomunicado detention for weeks and surely tortured in that time, you'd have no access to media and you'll end up paying decades and maybe full lives in jail for maybe a mere opinion "crime".
In the USA there would be no different, maybe even worse. Look at Mumia, look at Peltier, look at all those in the concentration camp of Guantanamo, held for decades without trial. You would not be given almost any chance at elections, where the twin single party enjoys all benefits and anybody outside it is made a total political pariah.
You would be very likely just killed on the spot and any attempt at pseudo-revolt would be most brutally quelled without blinking. Instead that softy of Maduro took his time and was extremely careful in implementing even the most basic order, even if the "rebels" (terrorists) were murdering civilians and even policemen almost serially.
I have no idea why you comment here but I don't want to know about people like you. Go back to your fascist hole, leave me alone. Thank you.