The elections are over. An overall majority for the New Democracy government, a slight increase in the vote share for PASOK and the KKE, the election of one extreme right and two far right parties, and the re-election of the demented Zoe Konstantopoulou who, having scraped into Parliament with 3.17% of the popular vote, declared her party the real opposition. How do these dingbats get into Parliament? The big story, however, is the collapse of SYRIZA. While still the main opposition party, they will enter Parliament with 48 seats against ND’s 158, 110 seats behind the government in a 300-seat assembly. From 1974 to 2015, Greece had parliaments that resembled other western models – a government majority and a strong opposition taking turns at being in power. That all changed in 2015 when SYRIZA was elected, ND coming a poor second, and PASOK – the dominant party since 1981 – being driven into third place.
Greece has an educated population, and it has always puzzled me that so many people could be duped into believing that Alexis Tsipras, a work-shy, unemployed, indolent schoolboy would ever be able to save the country. His ignorant, inexperienced braggadocio led directly to the Troika’s third (and harshest) Memorandum. Until yesterday, this useless piece of shit had led a charmed life. His main strengths are his capacity for betrayal and his ability to pull stunts. He will sell colleagues and even the country down the river.
In his graceless summary of yesterday’s electoral debacle, he blamed ND for the rise of fascism in Parliament. Let’s look at that a little more closely.
The real Fascists, the Spartans (Σπαρτιάτες), are the spawn of Golden Dawn. They got 4.6% of the vote and 12 seats. The other far-right parties – more patriotic and Orthodox than outright Fascists – are Greek Solution (Ελληνική Λύση) and Victory (ΝΙΚΗ). They garnered 4.4% and 3.7% of votes cast, translating into 12 and 10 seats respectively. So, the real bad boys have only 12 seats in Parliament, while the milder wingnuts have 22, or 30 if you add the 8 seats won by the self-proclaimed “real opposition”, Course of Freedom (Πλεύση Ελευθερίας).
So, the concern about fascism was overstated by Tsipras, the only concern being that the Spartans persuaded 9.2% of the 17-34 age group to vote for them. Tsipras also ignored the fact that his 2019 Treaty of Prespes led directly to the founding of NIKH. And it is no accident that Victory’s voter base is mainly in the north of the country. Anyone with a little historical awareness would know that states with geographical epithets are recipes for future strife. North/South Korea, East/West Pakistan, Northern Ireland, South Sudan, Portuguese East Timor. Tsipras & Co allowed FYROM to become North Macedonia. How long will it be before North Macedonians start reclaiming “their” South?
Anyway, NIKH (founded in 2019) and Ελληνική Λύση (founded in 2016) are the latest in a long line of short-lived patriotic, Orthodox, Russian-leaning and anti-foreigner parties. Quite often, too, they are one-man bands like Georgos Karatzaferis who, in 2000, founded the now defunct Popular Orthodox Rally, Λαϊκός Ορθόδοξος Συναγερμός in Greek. Its initials in Greek – ΛΑΟΣ – correspond to the Greek word for people, λαός. You can’t get more populist than that.
Another example is Independent Greeks (Ανεξάρτητοι Έλληνες), another one-man band founded by Panos Kammenos in 2012. Together with SYRIZA, this band of chancers showed how lacking in principle Greek politicians are. As SYRIZA failed to win an overall majority in 2015, they went into bed with the Independent Greeks in what became a far-left far-right cohabitation. Going into a coalition with PASOK or KKE would have made more sense ideologically. The Treaty of Prespes put a real strain on the coalition, which collapsed in 2019. Although not officially dissolved, Independent Greeks have been inactive since 2019.
Finally, the depressing thing is that since 1974, this is the first time Greece has had a Parliament with no real opposition. The combined total of seats won by the three main left-wing parties (SYRIZA, PASOK, KKE) is 100 seats exactly. Let’s hope New Democracy do not use their unassailable majority to fuck over the poor and the youth of the country.