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The author is a member of the OKDE-Spartakos, the section of the
Fourth International in Greece. A shortened version of this article appeared
in the November 2007 edition of Socialist Action newspaper.
The
Sept.16 election held in Greece was marked by the catastrophic forest
fires at the end of August, which destroyed large parts of the western
Peloponnese, Euboea, and other parts of the country. Sixty-seven people
and 70,000 animals burnt to death, and some villages were destroyed.
The
refusal of past governments, of the social democratic PASOK (1981-89,
1993-2004) and the bourgeois conservative New Democracy (ND, 1989-1993,
2004-7), to protect the forests and the general environment by adequate
measures was responsible for the disaster. The results of the elections
were not strongly influenced by these events, but there was a
surprising increase in support for the moderate left “Green
Alternatives” from 0 to 1%, and of abstentions and spoiled votes from
25.8% to 28.7%.
Prime
Minister Karamanlis (ND) opted for early elections because an election
victory of the ND seemed sure. He and his government intend to push
forward and speed up their program of counter-reforms. The ND fell from
45.4% to 41. 8% of the votes, but can continue to govern with 152 out
of 300 deputies due to the undemocratic election law.
The
government is weakened, but the result was a relative success for it.
The surprise was that the PASOK, the main opposition party, also
suffered big losses and fell from 40.6% to 38.1%. The votes for the big
two parties, which used to guarantee a certain stability of the social
and political system in favor of capitalist class rule after 1974,
decreased from 85. 9% to 79.9%.
Gains
were made by the traditionalist Stalinist Communist Party of Greece
(CPG), which rose from 5.9 to 8.2% and the left alliance SYRIZA, which
rose from 3.2% to 5%.
SYRIZA
consists of the former Eurocommunist, left-reformist SYN
("Alliance of the Left") and some smaller leftist groups,
among them the left-Stalinist KOE (Communist Organization of Greece)
and two semi-Trotskyist groups, DEA (Internationalist Workers'
Left,
a split from the SEK [Socialist Workers Party, affiliated with the
British SWP] and close to the ISO in the United States) and “Kokkino”
("Red", a split from DEA, interested in the 4th
International).
If
one adds the results of the extra-parliamentarist groups, the CPG-ML
(0.24%), the ML-CPG (0.11%), the alliances MERA (0.17%) and ENANTIA
(0.15%), to which the OKDE-Spartakos, the Greek section of the 4th
International, belongs, the total result of the Greek
left
is 13.9%.
At
the same time, the right-wing extremist and racist LAOS (“Popular-Orthodox
Alarm”) rose from 2.2 to 3.8%, surpassing the requirement of 3% to be
represented in the parliament. The LAOS is extremely pro-capitalist and
will put pressure on the ND government to perform its reactionary
program decisively.
The
LAOS will also represent the chauvinist popular “anger” regarding the
irrational dispute over the name of the neighboring country, called
“Republic of Macedonia” or “FYROM” (Federal Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia), since the Greek state insists that the name “Macedonia” belongs
exclusively to its northern province.
Some
groups of neo-nazi thugs and openly fascist groups and individuals,
some of whom were elected as deputies, are an essential part of LAOS's
identity. Particularly worrying
is that the LAOS had its best results in the workers' suburbs of
Athens, Pireas, and Salonica.
Thus,
the election is marked by a polarization to the left and to the extreme
right at the expense of the big parties of the center-right and
center-left. This trend is likely to get stronger in the future because
the economic and political crisis is sharpening and class
contradictions are increasing. Despite the election victory of the ND
and the success of LAOS, the result shows a limited but clear shift to
the left.
The defeat of the PASOK
The
PASOK was not able to take advantage of various scandals of the ND
government, like the robbing of pension funds, the policy of
privatization of the universities, corruption affairs, the brutality of
the police, the increasing debts of private households and the rise in
prices. This failure is partly attributable to the bland president,
George Papandreou, the son of the party founder and long time prime
minister Andreas Papandreou.
But
their defeat has deeper reasons. Particularly during the years of the
K. Simitis governments (1996-2004), the party and its governments
pursued more and more right-wing and neoliberal policies, which led to
the heavy defeat of 2004. Afterwards, the party followed a very
half-hearted line of opposition, and retreated from any forms of
protests,
mobilizations,
or strikes against the governmental policy, contenting itself with
addressing issues of secondary importance.
The
rank and file of the party, in the past rather active, was virtually dissolved
by the leadership. G. Papandreou himself recently declared that the
PASOK “has transformed itself into an apparatus of exercising power and
has ignored the needs of broad popular layers.”
The
trade-union leadership, still to a large extent controlled by PASOK
bureaucrats, try with very few exceptions to suffocate all kinds of
rank-and-file mobilizations against pro-business measures. In the two
or three weeks before the election, Papandreou tried to change the
situation by making promises in favor of working people and the
non-privileged popular layers, but the electorate did not take them
very seriously. After all, the PASOK got what it deserved for more or
less unconditionally lining up with big business interests over a long
period.
After
the defeat, a sharp struggle broke out over the leadership of the
party. Papandreou's challenger, V. Venizelos, is even more right wing
than the present party president. A left wing, which could express the
needs of the workers and broader layers, at least in a classical
reformist way, is very unlikely to appear. The main hope for the future is that parts of the rank
and file will break away from the party.
The success of the CPG and of the SYRIZA
For
the first time, the Communist Party of Greece can exploit the crisis of
the PASOK to a large extent. It remains the leading force of the Greek
left. It uses a lot of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist
rhetoric. But it does not
surpass classic reformist conceptions like "popular economy"
directed to an alliance with small sections of the bourgeoisie and a
"popular front".
The
CP appears, however, as the "most left-wing" force of the
parties represented in the parliament and thus attracts most of the
left-wing protest votes. Always organizing its own protest marches and
refusing any collaboration with other parties or organizations, the CP
cultivates its resolute sectarianism. The policy of its leadership is
one of the most severe obstacles to the success of mobilizations,
strikes, and movements. The CP
leadership is deeply nationalist and supports "its own"
bourgeoisie in all important issues of foreign affairs, be it Cyprus or
the Aegean sea.
Sometimes
it does not even recoil from alliances with extreme right-wing forces.
One of the CP deputies, the independent journalist Liana Kanelli, is a
fanatic supporter of "patriotism" based on religious-orthodox
ideas.
The
party strives for Greece's exit from the EU without offering any
convincing internationalist perspective. Its ideas on
"socialism" draw upon on the old discredited Stalinist model.
It is an open question to what extent the strengthening of the CP will
serve the needs of the workers' movement and the social resistance.
The
vote increase of the other left-reformist force, SYRIZA, under the
leadership of the SYN and its president Alavanos, was significant too.
After 2000, the SYN turned to the left; it participates in various
movements and was active in the European Social Forum,
which
held its successful congress in Athens last year. The SYN managed to rebuild
a youth organization, mainly at the universities, and tries to present
an open, left-pluralist, ecologicist, etc. profile in different
struggles.
SYRIZA
declared that there would be no governmental collaboration with the
neoliberal PASOK after the elections. The strategic orientation of the
SYN, however, is indissolubly tied to alliances with PASOK at the level
of communities, districts, in the trade unions, and also at the level
of national politics.
Like
all other parties of the "European Left," the SYN leadership
is deeply convinced that the capitalist system has to be reformed by
adequate left-parliamentary means. It believes that current
governmental policies and the neoliberal model have to be replaced by
improvements of the social welfare state.
The
practical involvement of the SYN in actions and mobilizations is rather
cautious, and most of the SYN trade-union leaders do not take
significant initiatives that can seriously challenge the passivity and
defeatism promoted by the PASOK-dominated bureaucracies.
A
strong right wing of the party rejects left activism and any alliance
with smaller left radical organizations as a matter of principle, and
supports a "realistic" line. That means favoring alliances
with PASOK on all levels. The SYN leadership is very likely to attempt
to take advantage of the crisis of the PASOK in order to occupy the
free space on the left
for
a new left reformist project.
The anti-capitalist left
For
several decades, the Greek extra-parliamentary left has been divided
into dozens of organizations with Maoist, other Stalinist, Trotskyist,
etc. origins. Due to this confusing situation and to a strong need for
recognition of the various "leaderships," it continues to
have difficulties to build a socially rooted, alternative pole,
although its activists play an important role in all social and
political conflicts.
In
the municipal elections of 2006, for the first time in many years,
alliances of the radical left won quite good results, 1-2% in some
suburbs of Athens and Pireas. Before the September elections, some
organizations tried in a serious way to discuss their differences and
to consider a united front of the anticapitalist left.
The
SEK, affiliated to the British SWP (and the IST, the
"International Socialist Tendency", founded by Tony Cliff and
his co-thinkers) and known until a few months ago for its peculiar
sectarianism, took an important initiative and approached, among other
organizations,
the NAR ("New Left Current", originating in the CP's youth
organization, that was bureaucratically expelled by the CP leadership
in 1989), one of the other relatively big organizations which leads the
leftist alliance "MERA" ("Front of the Radical
Left").
In
June, the SEK, ARAN, ARAS and OKDE-Spartakos launched the alliance
"ENANTIA" ("United Anti-capitalist Left"). The
alliance aimed at expressing the movements of the last years of the
bank employees, the teachers, the students and others, but generally
also the rights of the immigrants and the outrage about the catastrophic
balance sheet of environmental policies.
Due
to the specific sectarianism of the NAR and MERA, and despite the fact
that a normal person interested in left politics would have difficulty
understanding the differences between MERA and ENANTIA, it was not
possible to create a common list of the two
anti-capitalist
alliances. The election results remained low.
It
is obvious that the dominance of the reformist left could not be broken
in the recent period. But a more skillful and flexible policy,
orientated towards unity in action, can contribute decisively to
gathering the leading activists of the workers' and other social
movements,
towards creating an anticapitalist pole of attraction. Such a political
project can be successful in the coming period if broader layers of
workers, youth, women, and immigrants start acting in the spirit of a
united front against the plans of government and capital.
Prospects
There
is no doubt about the intentions of the old-new government. The
reactionary counter-reforms of the pension scheme, which means a more
coordinated regulation of it downwards, the increase in the pensionable
age, the selling or the closure of Olympic
Airways,
the erosion of permanent employment in the public sector, more
privatizations, particularly of the telephone company OTE and the
electricity company DEI, are on the agenda.
That
is precisely what Loulis, the president of the employers' association
SEV, expressed in his congratulatory letter to Karamanlis upon his
re-election.
The
coming months will show how the parties and organizations of the left,
the trade unions, and the workers' movement confront the expected wave
of attacks being prepared and launched by the government and big
business.
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