Monday 18 June 2012

The worst of times....




 
'I voted for the thieves', declared a man in Plaka in Athens yesterday as he was leaving the polling station. This sums up the unfortunate and disastrous election results in Greece yesterday. The sustained blackmail campaign from inside of Greece and particularly from abroad proved more effective than Tsipras' message of hope -  fear prevailed.

The people who got the narrow majority and who now are looking to form a coalition government are the people who created the present crisis in Greece. They are the people who lied and cheated and brought the country to its knees. They are the people who have inflated the public sector to the monstrous size it is today while they were procurring favours for those who voted for them. They are the people who introduced corruption into every level of Greek public life and they are the people who filled their pockets to such an extent that the majority of the population have reached unprecedented levels of impoverishment. They are the people who, after the first bailout, introduced laws to make structural changes as instructed by the Troika and did not implement any of them.

Will these people suddenly change? I can say with certainty that they will not. Today's Kathimerini main editorial puts it less bluntly than me: 'Let us hope that the parties surpass themselves and prove us wrong'.

Kathimerini also states: 'The 17 June elections allow us to keep open a channel of communication with our partners so that we can work on a new plan for a way out of the crisis with the least possible instability. But it is very likely that we have just slowed our rush towards the cliff and burned our brakes in the process'.

This election result will only prolong the agony of the Greek people: more austerity, more impoverishment, more fascist-instigated unrest in the streets, more government incompetence and corruption, more laws introduced which are not implemented, more promises to Europe which will not be kept, increased daily suicides as people see no way out.

The winner of this election was fear and the rush towards the cliff  has just accelerated.









3 comments:

  1. I'm not surprised you're disappointed with the election results.

    I think one of the worst aspect of the whole thing is the behaviour of PASOK. Still, given all the lessons of history I shouldn't be surprised to be let down by social democrats. We know what Marx said about how history repeats itself.

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  2. I totally agree Mick. I remember the day when the military junta fell: I was working in Athens and could not get back home from work. The roads were packed with people and cars honking their horns - everyone was out celebrating. It was such a fantastic atmosphere. The next day Andreas Papandreou arrived from exile in the USA and everyone went to the airport to greet him, shouting 'Andrea, Andrea'. So much promise and hope, and such subsequent disillusionment and disappointment....

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  3. Given the way the Palace guards march, do you think they might be members of Golden Dawn?

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