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After a tough year, two parliamentary elections and the formation of a coalition government aligned with the austerity politics imposed by the troika, formed by the European Commission, the European Center Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Greece enters 2013 with no expectations of improving its economy and with its government on a tightrope.
The last important poles of the year on the Greek parliament occurred in November and proved that the trio formed by New Democracy, Pasok and Democratic Left is fragile, in spite of having the largest number of seats in the house. When the second IMF’s memorandum was voted, with measures that imply cuts on the budget in order to roll-over the debt, 12 deputies left their parties rebelling against the austerity’s measures.
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That way, the advantage in seats of the premier Antonis Samaras, of the New Democracy party, elected on June 2012, fell to a margin of only 13 deputies. Besides losing ground in the local politics, the economists believe that Samaras’ effort was null — the package was only a way the European Union found to gain time until the German elections, in September 2013.
“The decision on November 2012 was merely a pretext to allow Greece more loans and gain another year or so until Europe tries to mend, the same way, its crisis on other places — particularly in Italy and Spain. Meanwhile, Greece is condemned to another year of misery, unaccomplished goals, depression etc.”, says the Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis.
On its most recent release about the country, the European Commission praises the government for having reinforced the bank account that serves exclusively to the debt’s roll-over and for the initiative of channeling the money originated from privatizations and from part of the country’s surplus for the same purpose.
In exchange, the coalition that sustains Samaras approved measures that will affect the Greek population directly, especially the unemployed, who represent 25% of the working force in the country — such as a future basic rate of 25 euros for those who need public health services.
These measures’ applicability and acceptance are still unknown. The Greek democracy has an acceptance of only 11%, losing its credibility since IMF’s intervention. The Greek parliament is seen by the population as a puppet house, conducted by Germany.
“We are slaves of [Angela] Merkel [chancellor of Germany]. Greece is not for sale and our prime-minister is a traitor. They made a program to buy Greece for peanuts. The whole Greek population knows that”, reveals the unemployed journalist Rena Maniou, that was protesting on Syntagma Square the day the package was approved.
PIGS and neo-Nazism
Greece’s faith is chained to the faiths of Portugal, Italy and Spain. The four countries received the very unpleasant abbreviation of PIGS. They are all hostages to their debts and to austerity politics, but amongst them only Greece saw the uprising of neo-Nazism.
On June’s elections, the Golden Dawn party, with a coat of arms that holds a meander, symbol of an alleged Greek purity, and painted on the colors of the National Socialist German’s Workers Party, gathered 18 seats on the Greek parliament. Its president, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, has old ties with members of the military board that administrated Greece between 1967 and 1973, denies Holocaust and is seen in a video yelling on the streets of Athens that he wants the “immigrants out” of his country.
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Even with all the international pressure to detain the advance of the Golden Dawn, especially amongst humanitarian groups, recent researches show a promising scenario for the neo-Nazis.
If new elections were schedule today, they’d become the third largest workbench on the Greek parliament, only behind New Democracy, the Premier’s party, and Syriza, the left-wing anti-austerity coalition.
“The Golden Dawn’s electoral success echoed sadly throughout Europe because it represents the rebirth of neo-Nazism in our continent. Neo-Nazism can´t be assimilated by a group of old man in denial who miss their youth with Hitler. It’s topic and its dangerousness won’t disappear with the last criminals of the Nazi period”, wrote the president of the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement, Bejamin Abtan.
Abtan’s message was a warning to Premier Antonis Samaras, published by several Greek newspapers as soon the wife of the neo-Nazi leader Michaloliakos, Eleni Zaroulia, was included on the Greek delegation for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. There was no answer and the green deputies show no clear moves to try to banish the Golden Dawn from the country’s political life.
The party has its roots on the Greek police and has gathered middle class militants, by adopting populist measures and banishing immigrants. Young and old people, won over by the nationalist speeches, start to enter the lines of the Golden Dawn, contribution for the increase on the group’s electoral base.
Answers
In the night when the IMF’s memorandum was voted, the Syriza parliamentarians carried a huge band trough Plaza Syntagma, watched and applauded by at least 200 thousand people. The party is becoming more and more popular since the last poll, but, nevertheless, couldn’t still echo on enough sectors of the population to turn the table and block the austerity packages.
There’s an effort coming from the left on the European south to unite the leaders of the countries damaged by the crisis and start a movement that can replace the troika’s measures. Greek activists from several sectors know that the news that come from Spain and Portugal today are the same that they received a year ago, and that their process is simila, and, apparently, unavoidable.
For them, 2013 will be a crucial year to keep balance of what’s left of the Greeks social fabric, hit hard by the measures that ended the country’s well fare state, and to serve as an example for the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, the population’s weariness and discontentment are visible, and local economic alternatives, as well as solidarity efforts, have been the answer for an institutionalized frustration. Meanwhile, Greece is bleeding.