Greek election - January 25th 2015

[SNJ1985]

I would vote for LAOS, or maybe ANEL.

[politicus]

I would vote for LAOS, or maybe ANEL.

No one in their right mind would vote for ANEL. I suppose LAOS is the choice of sane fascists.

[politicus]

ND is trying to capture voters to the right. They have placed pro-government ex-ANEL Indies on their lists and are trying to persuade ANEL and LAOS deputies to desert - basically causing those parties to implode. They may be challenged by Takis Baltakos (former government GS) and his ultra-conservative Roots, though I highly doubt he will be successful.
 
There are at least two questions in this

1) Will anti-austerity right wingers vote for ND to stop Syriza?

2) If ND goes right does that give some of the centrist options a chance to capture moderate centre-right voters? All the centrist options are basically centre-left, so how does the battle for the centre play out in this scenario?

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/the-hard-right-tack-of-antonis-samaras

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

1) Will anti-austerity right wingers vote for ND to stop Syriza?

2) If ND goes right does that give some of the centrist options a chance to capture moderate centre-right voters? All the centrist options are basically centre-left, so how does the battle for the centre play out in this scenario?

1) As you probably can guess, no. In fact, they might prefer an unstable Syriza minority because it breeds the instability in which they feed on/

2) To Potami? I mean the party is ridiculously intellectual and elite (look at their selected list of names), they might get the urban ND voter that seems to be souring on them in recent years.

[politicus]

1) Will anti-austerity right wingers vote for ND to stop Syriza?

2) If ND goes right does that give some of the centrist options a chance to capture moderate centre-right voters? All the centrist options are basically centre-left, so how does the battle for the centre play out in this scenario?

1) As you probably can guess, no. In fact, they might prefer an unstable Syriza minority because it breeds the instability in which they feed on/

2) To Potami? I mean the party is ridiculously intellectual and elite (look at their selected list of names), they might get the urban ND voter that seems to be souring on them in recent years.

The questions should not be interpreted as "things I personally wanted answers to", but things to debate.

While the right wing anti-austerity parties thrive on insecurity many of their voters  may not want the left in power. This is at least what Samaras & Co are banking on.

Potami has liberal elements, but also leftists. Going from Conservative to Social Liberal is often a big step identity wise, so going Conservative to SoLibs in alliance with actual leftists... No doubt some will, but not many.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Possibly. In Spain, the Rajoy's rightward turns (and scandals) have left centrists leaving to PSOE in droves, maintaining PSOE as a viable force even with much of their "base" flirting with Podemos. Maybe the soft-right will boost the centrist leftists to "moderate" an "inevitable" Syriza government.

[politicus]

Papandreou Party name: ‘Movement of Democratic Socialists’ (Kinima Dimokraton Sosialiston) according to its founding charter. More "lefty" than the first drafts and the emblem of the new party will be an SD classic: a rose on a red background.

PASOK calls Papandreou’s move an 'immoral act'

[politicus]

A bit puzzling why he went from the "change" stuff to an ideological name/emblem, but either himself or key advisors must have gotten cold feet. Probably a sensible move, it would have been too easy to ridicule.

[Beezer]

First shot of the troika/austerity camp in this contest: German government now thinks Grexit would be manageable. (German)

[Velasco]

Possibly. In Spain, the Rajoy's rightward turns (and scandals) have left centrists leaving to PSOE in droves, maintaining PSOE as a viable force even with much of their "base" flirting with Podemos.

That is not entirely correct. Centrists are mostly leaving to abstention while PP is turning rightwards, albeit in an erratic manner. The government withdrew the abortion bill months ago, but recently passed the reactionary 'gag law' on public safety. Corruption scandals affect PSOE too, specially in Andalusia and to a lesser extent than PP in other places. PSOE is trying to appeal centrist voters and seems to be picking small part of them and recovering some former abstainers in the centre-left. Most of the polls in December placed PSOE third, still around 20%.   

[politicus]

Deputy finance minister in Papandreou’s first government Filippos Sachinidis and former government spokesman Giorgos Petalotis will be the party’s "media representatives".

Other PASOK deserters are former parliamentary speaker Filippos Petsalnikos and former minister Dimitris Reppas + MPs Thanos Moraitis, Sokratis Xynidis and Simos Kedikoglou. Papandreou’s Brother Nikos has a key role and there is speculation about whether his daughter Margarita (who is a molecular biologist and has not been involved in politics) will play a role. She has been active in the planning.

Otherwise the idea is to present "fresh faces" and avoid the old guard.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_03/01/2015_545924

[Filuwaúrdjan]

O.K. here's a partial solution. We pay for the Elgin Marbles, Greece uses the money to pay back some of its debt. Everyone wins!

[Tender Branson]

Is there already some initial polling on the MDS ?

And how likely is it that it will draw some potential SYRIZA voters ?

[Zanas]

Not for the moment, no, but Palmos for tvxs will include them in their next deliver next week.

For the moment, Syriza's electorate is very stable, and virtually none of their past voters were transferring to Pasok. Only 2% of them were going to Potami, 3% to "Others", including maybe a few to Pasok, and 6% undecided.

In the latest Palmos poll, however, Pasok is trailing and is now getting only 3% in raw figures. They end up with 4% with corrected data, though. The pollster seem to allocate a disproportionate amount of undecided voters to Potami and ND rather than XA or Syriza, probably assuming that undecideds will break for stability in the end, which I'm not sure is safe to assume in this particular context.

Here are the raw figures, then how they would translate on only the valid votes, then the corrected figures provided by the pollster, ending with the seat count.

Syriza : 29.4 / 36.9 / 35.5 / 149
ND : 22 / 27.6 / 28 / 78
XA : 5.7 / 7.2 / 6.5 / 18
KKE : 4.3 / 5.4 / 5.5 / 15
Potami : 4.1 / 5.1 / 6.5 / 18
Anel : 3.2 / 4 / 4 / 11
Pasok : 3 / 3.8 / 4 / 11
OP (Greens) : 2.2 / 2.8 / NA
Others : 5.8 / 7.3 / 10 (including OP)

I'm not sure how XA starting at a 5.7 raw figure and To Potami starting at a 4.1 raw figure could end up the same. It would mean there is an opposite a the shy fascist voter effect. Well, maybe there is. But still a bit weird nonetheless.

Still, looking good for Syriza. If any of Anel, Pasok or the new ridiculously power-grabbing Papandreou outfit doesn't make it into Parliament, they could be getting an absolute majority with as few as 33.5 % !

Not that it is democratically very satsifying, of course...

[politicus]

Is there already some initial polling on the MDS ?

And how likely is it that it will draw some potential SYRIZA voters ?

Financial Times refers to a poll from last week saying Papandreou could get 4-5% and take vital votes from Syriza, but no link or reference to the pollster - and the last part seems like wishful thinking on their part.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/51c90b1a-91c0-11e4-afd2-00144feabdc0.html

[Zanas]

Well, the poll we discussed was just posted on the wikipedia page about opinion polling for this election and on the electograph blog.

Here you go :



Seats :

Syriza   156
ND   76
XA   26
KKE   15
Potami   12
Anel   0
KDS   15
Pasok 0

Still, I can't find the raw data, and the pollster seems previously unknown. XA is higher than it is these days, and these are abrupt falls for each of Potami, ND and of course Pasok. We'd rather be prudent.

[morgieb]

So PASOK won't have any seats? LOL!

[politicus]

So PASOK won't have any seats? LOL!

The real LOL scenario is both Pasok and MDS without any seats.

[justfollowingtheelections]

DIMAR is having close discussions with the Greens (a party founded by a former MEP of the Greens-Ecologists aka OP who left the party before the 2014 EU elections) in order to run on the same ballot, but some of their members are not very happy and would rather run with Papandreou.
SYRIZA is also trying to get ANTARSYA and the Greens-Ecologists (OP) to run with them.
http://en.protothema.gr/syriza-calls-on-greens-and-leftist-factions-to-collaborate/

Drasi by the way, probably the largest liberal party in Greece, has joined Potami which puts them even closer to the center and less likely to cooperate with SYRIZA.

If I had to make a prediction I would say that Papandreou will do a lot better than PASOK and will probably take votes away from SYRIZA as well.
  

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

So I wanted to poke around looking at what a Syriza government would actually do in power, beyond cross their fingers and desperately hope Germany's heart grows three sizes. I managed to find a manifesto of sorts from 2012:

http://links.org.au/node/2888

Some awesomely hare-brained stuff (they want Germany to pay them WWII reparations? Um, good luck with that), and a couple of stuff that almost certainly will be abandoned; but there are some good stuff in there. Unfortunately being in the euro means they won't get any of it done, so I expect them to sort of flail around doing soft-left issues to keep the base kinda happy.

(incidentally while I was searching google for New Left issues that a Syriza government could take action on, I found out that Papandreou supports the legalisation of marijuana now (?!?) )

[politicus]

So I wanted to poke around looking at what a Syriza government would actually do in power, beyond cross their fingers and desperately hope Germany's heart grows three sizes. I managed to find a manifesto of sorts from 2012:

http://links.org.au/node/2888

Some awesomely hare-brained stuff (they want Germany to pay them WWII reparations? Um, good luck with that), and a couple of stuff that almost certainly will be abandoned; but there are some good stuff in there. Unfortunately being in the euro means they won't get any of it done, so I expect them to sort of flail around doing soft-left issues to keep the base kinda happy.

(incidentally while I was searching google for New Left issues that a Syriza government could take action on, I found out that Papandreou supports the legalisation of marijuana now (?!?) )

If you look at statements/networking/contacts to business leaders etc. they have been preparing a move to the center for a long time. I do not think the 2012 program is all that relevant for their actual  actions in government + they will most likely depend on cooperating with a centrist party.

[Velasco]

German government sees "Grexit" inevitable if Syriza wins the election. Angela Merkel and her closest collaborators consider "manageable" an scenario in which Greece leaves the Euro staying in the EU, according to a trial balloon diffused by Der Spiegel not refused by the German Chancellery. Czech president Milos Zeman stated that Greece should be expelled from the Eurozone because Greece joined the single currency falsifying the country statistics... maybe ignoring that the fraud was perpetrated by a ND cabinet and that the Troika's Favorite Antonis Samaras is the ND leader! 

In Spain, Rajoy's government and the Popular Party expect that the "Greece effect" would damage Pablo Iglesias. They believe that Podemos won't benefit from a Syriza victory because:

a) If Favorite Antonis Samaras doesn't win, the instability in Greece is going to scare potential voters of Podemos who are moderate. They will see the great difficulties provoked by a government not wanted by the great EU powers.

b) Greece will mirror the difficulties of fulfilling the promises of breaking austerity policies and renegotiating the debt. Every day with Syriza in power will demonstrate, according to the Spanish government, that there's not margin for negotiation between Athens and Brussels (and Berlin).

PP government publicly states that it's embracing austerity by conviction, but ministries say in private that Brussels and Berlin didn't leave them room to enact another policy.

[jaichind]

Merkel is turning into SYRIZA's best campaign weapon.  By making a veiled threat that Germany can stand a Grexit and then followed by CDU SPD guys flip flop on that issues Merkel is making it look that she is trying to good cop/bad cop Greece into voting for ND.  Given how popular Germany/Merkel is in Greece this can only hurt ND and help SYRIZA.  I think it is critical that SYRIZA is kept out of power but with stuff like this taking place I am beginning to feel it might not be possible.   Now it is a game of chicken.  A SYRIZA regime will want to renegotiation the terms of debt and  Germany/EU/IMF will want to say no.  If neither side budges then we will have a crash.  I wonder who will blink first.  I bet it will be Germany/EU/IMF.  There is a Chinese saying which goes "If you own someone $1000 he is your Daddy, but if you own someone $1 million then you are his Daddy."  Greece owns so much money it might turn into a weapon they can wield.  Sort of like what Trump did back in the 1990s.

[EPG]

It is a negotiating tactic - not to say that it won't happen, but it's useful and important to say whatever the outcome, and what else can Germany actually say - that they'll give Greece whatever it takes to keep them in? Now if you think it helps SYRIZA and that the German government is at least as intelligent as the average Atlas Forum poster, what does that tell us about Germany's desired outcome? Probably that they don't care whether the government is SYRIZA or New Democracy leading a coalition with the centre-left.

[justfollowingtheelections]

DIMAR will officially run as "Greens-Democratic Left".