Greece General Discussion

[politicus]

!!!

Breaking news:

ANEL backbencher Pavlos Chaikalos announced on a Greek morning TV show that someone repeatedly offered him bribes to vote for Dimas and that he recorded one of the attempts and has already testified to prosecutors about it. He was allegedly offered €700,000 in cash, €2 or €3 million in professional contracts, and the full settlement of his current bank loans. The TV host said he was aware of another MP who had privately made similar allegations.

Yeah, TOC also had that story, but its not really surprising - maybe the price is a little higher than what I would have guessed.

From the ANEL press conference:

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/what-panos-kammenos-said-about-the-alleged-bribery-over-president-election

Papandreou has declared he will launch a new party and are calling for an emergency, all-party government to change the Constitution and renegotiate with the international creditors.

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/19/george-papandreou-to-launch-new-political-party/

[Landslide Lyndon]

!!!

Breaking news:

ANEL backbencher Pavlos Chaikalos announced on a Greek morning TV show that someone repeatedly offered him bribes to vote for Dimas and that he recorded one of the attempts and has already testified to prosecutors about it. He was allegedly offered €700,000 in cash, €2 or €3 million in professional contracts, and the full settlement of his current bank loans. The TV host said he was aware of another MP who had privately made similar allegations.

Don't twist your panties in a knot B.K.
Chaikalis is a well-known comedian and real-life buffoon who makes Pepe Grillo look like the second coming of Winston Churchill. I'll be extremely surprised is this whole affair produces even a whiff of serious evidence.  

[Bacon King]

!!!

Breaking news:

ANEL backbencher Pavlos Chaikalos announced on a Greek morning TV show that someone repeatedly offered him bribes to vote for Dimas and that he recorded one of the attempts and has already testified to prosecutors about it. He was allegedly offered €700,000 in cash, €2 or €3 million in professional contracts, and the full settlement of his current bank loans. The TV host said he was aware of another MP who had privately made similar allegations.

Don't twist your panties in a knot B.K.
Chaikalis is a well-known comedian and real-life buffoon who makes Pepe Grillo look like the second coming of Winston Churchill. I'll be extremely surprised is this whole affair produces even a whiff of serious evidence.   

The prosecutor's office has confirmed that Chiakalis did testify and provided them with a copy of the recording, and he's already named one "George Apostolopoulos" as the middle-man who directly offered the bribes in the recording. Does Greece have laws against "false reporting of a crime" and/or slander laws that would (or, I guess, should) have prevented Chiakalis from pulling this stunt if it was a complete fabrication?

At any rate, whether this is true or not, ANEL is milking it for all it's worth, presumably in a desperate attempt to stay relevant enough to pass the electoral threshold:

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[politicus]

Now they got (some) footage of the attempted bribery.

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/recording-released-of-alleged-bribery-attempt-of-mp-chaikalis

EDIT: Its been removed from TOC, but maybe its still on some other sites. It was parapolitika.gr, that published it originally.

All a bit dubious as well:

"It should also be noted that at no point in the footage can the mouths of the two men be seen and matched with the words they are supposedly saying. Additionally the audio and video seem to be at the very least out of sync. For example at about the 4.07 mark Apostolopoulos can be seen taking a sip of coffee when he is supposedly speaking."

[politicus]

"Everything you wanted to know about the Independent Greeks bribery scandal / fiasco / circus but were afraid to ask"

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/was-anel-mp-pavlos-haikalis-offered-a-bribe-of-3-million-euros

[swl]

Samaras offered to widen the governing coalition and to organize early elections before the end of 2015 once the bailout talks are complete. Apparently several independent MPs see that as an acceptable compromise, and the leaders of ANEL and the Democratic Left rejected the offer (but party discipline does not seem really high). We will see on the 23rd what difference it makes.

[Bacon King]

Ok so apparently Apostopolous testified something to the effect of 'yes everything that was recorded was true and accurate but I was just baiting HIM to see if he could be bribed, because I don't trust him and I wanted to catch him, and this was all on my own so nobody else knew about it'

IMO either an actual attempted bribery took place, Chaikalis is a masterful troll who planned this all out with Apostolopolous and others to create the most electoral turmoil without technically committing any crimes they could be caught with. Probably relevant that Apostopolous used to work for ND then ANEL and now a bank- he's in a position to be the middle man for a bribe or the perfect collaborator for a ruse, but it's ridiculous to take his own story at face value

Also I really wish there were better English language websites doe greek news

[politicus]

Samaras offered to widen the governing coalition and to organize early elections before the end of 2015 once the bailout talks are complete. Apparently several independent MPs see that as an acceptable compromise, and the leaders of ANEL and the Democratic Left rejected the offer (but party discipline does not seem really high). We will see on the 23rd what difference it makes.

Its basically the core of the original part of DIMAR-Indie compromise proposal, so some DIMAR MPs are bound to suppoort it.

EDIT: It seems to be identical to it, which makes sense. First Pasok said they supported it and then ND budged.

[politicus]

Prosecutor drops bribery case for lack of evidence.

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/news/article/prosecutor-finds-no-evidence-to-alleged-mps-bribery-case

[politicus]

Second round is finished.

168 MPs voted for Stavros Dimas as new head of state while 131 voted present (=no). One MP was absent.

Changes:

The two former Golden Dawn MPs – turned independents Stathis Boukouras and Alexopoulos have changed their votes and voted for the government’s candidate and S. Kasapidis also voted ‘present’

K Giovanopoulos who was absent in the first vote has voted in favour of Dimas

V. Economou and Mikas Iatridis, who voted ‘present’ in the first round voted for Stavros Dimas.

No change:

Niki Founta and V. Kapernaros – both considered possible yes votes - voted ‘present for the second time.

[politicus]

All four absentees from the first round voted. Four of them voted no.

Another DIMAR MP has become independent, but she still voted no.

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/presidential-election-round-2-who-changed-their-vote---and-who-didnt

Status is that 13 independents supported Dimas, 11 were against (incl. the new indie gal) and 1 stayed away. Still no deserters from DIMAR or ANEL.

"What the government needs to avoid snap elections in January/February is in effect, a Christmas miracle, as without significant numbers of defections (or an unlikely change in the party lines) of the small opposition parties Independent Greeks and DIMAR, it will be effectively impossible for the government to elect a new president."

 

[justfollowingtheelections]

It's rather interesting that DIMAR and ANEL are voting no because they will most likely not get reelected.  Maybe they're waiting for the last election to get more out of a deal either with ND-Pasok or Syriza.  DIMAR leader Kouvelis has already said that they might be reunited with Syriza soon and I suspect that he will be the next president

[politicus]

It's rather interesting that DIMAR and ANEL are voting no because they will most likely not get reelected.  Maybe they're waiting for the last election to get more out of a deal either with ND-Pasok or Syriza.  DIMAR leader Kouvelis has already said that they might be reunited with Syriza soon and I suspect that he will be the next president

I am sure ANEL expects to be reelected.

DIMAR still being united behind a no is more remarkable, since the governments compromise offer was broadly identical to the original petition being send around by some DIMAR and some Indies.

The DIMAR/SYRIZA merger seems uncertain, because DIMAR wants to continue as an autonomous unit and have policy concessions, and with their current poll numbers I see no reason for SYRIZA to give them that.

[politicus]

Dimas has stated that he will not accept the presidency if elected on Golden Dawn votes, and a group of ND MPs  say they will vote against Dimas if Golden Dawn supports him to cancel out its votes.
Dimas has said nothing about independents that are former Golden Dawn members.

[Bacon King]

DIMAR merging with SYRIZA would not be surprising at all- they are splitters from not only SYRIZA but also from the same constituent party of SYRIZA that Tsipras himself was from. The leader of DIMAR spent a year as SYRIZA's Parliamentary spokesman, serving alongside Tsipras as the party's parliamentary leader. They go way back.

[justfollowingtheelections]

DIMAR merging with SYRIZA would not be surprising at all- they are splitters from not only SYRIZA but also from the same constituent party of SYRIZA that Tsipras himself was from. The leader of DIMAR spent a year as SYRIZA's Parliamentary spokesman, serving alongside Tsipras as the party's parliamentary leader. They go way back.

Actually the reason Kouvelis left SYRIZA to form DIMAR was because when Alekos Alavanos, the previous SYRIZA leader retired, Tsipras and Kouvelis were the two candidates that ran for the leadership position.  Tsipras was endorsed by Alavanos and had the support of the smaller radical left and green parties while Kouvelis had the support of the center left wing of SYRIZA.  Kouvelis and most of his supporters left the party soon after the election to form DIMAR and while they have been very critical of SYRIZA, after the May 2009 election when SYRIZA was asked by the President to try and form a government, Kouvelis was very supportive.  I think it would be good for Greece if the moderate and pragmatic DIMAR merged with SYRIZA, but I suspect that it might hurt their election prospects since the public seems to have a very bad opinion of DIMAR.  What's really funny is that Alavanos who was the main reason Tsipras became the SYRIZA leader has now left the party and founded Plan B a party that supports leaving the Eurozone (they had less than 1% in the EU elections IIRC).

By the way Bacon King, this is a pretty good website on greek political news:  http://en.protothema.gr/

[politicus]

Syriza would have very little to gain by merging with DIMAR, which is polling around 1-1.5% at the moment. If you add the fact that DIMAR wants policy concessions and to retain structural independence I see no reason why they would be interested. The only possible gain would be to secure DIMAR doesn't vote for Dimas in the end and prevent an election, but this advantage is wiped away by the fact that an election is no good for Syriza if they don't win it and taking microscopic and unpopular DIMAR aboard would be counterprodutive to that goal.

[politicus]

DIMAR "breakaway" the Reformists are merging with Potami with the aim of creating a third pole. This could become a safe haven for the centre-left Indies and make them more inclined to risk an election.

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/the-reformists-and-the-river-announce-alliance

[politicus]

Live coverage:

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/live-the-final-vote-for-president-of-the-republic

[Landslide Lyndon]

It's over. Get ready for January 25 or February 1.

[politicus]

Basically impossible by now.

[Beezer]

EuroCrisis II - This time it's personal

[politicus]

"This is now like half-time of a football match with one side up by 5-0. All that is left to see is the nature of the defeat for the government."

[politicus]

And it is official.. 121 against.

[Landslide Lyndon]

And it is official.. 121 against.

168-132 the final result.