Greece parliamentary election - September 20, 2015

[jaichind]

Don't get fooled. Union of Centrists is a joke party headed by a man with clear mental issues that makes Beppe Grillo look like a real statesman.
No serious party will ever even think to hold any kind of talks and legitimize them.

Why is EK getting such a surge in support in the polls this election?  It is about voting for a non-mainstream non-establishment but centrist/pro-Euro/liberal party?

[BigSkyBob]

Tsipras's actions were little less that George Hubert Walker Bush's "Read my lips! No new taxes!" on steroids. When faced with public debts that cannot be paid he ran on a platform of taking Greece's medicine by defaulting. Just as Bush opted for the expediency of tax increases over the pain of cutting the budget, Tsipras opted for the expediency playing the supplicant over the pain of default.

When running for reelection Bush, after winning the first Iraqi war, received a McGovern/Hoover percentage of the vote. I'm kinda mystified why Tsipras isn't polling 2.5%.

Also strange is why people are debating the relative merits of the CDU-CSU-Syrinza coalition over the CDU-CSU-ND coalition. Why not just run Angela Merkel and be done with it? The choice seems one of tweedle-dee vs. tweedle-stumme to me.

The history of these situations is that government run up massive debts selling its bonds to widows and orphans. When the debt become too large, the creditworthiness of nation is called into question raising interest rates and precipitating a "death spiral." As the debt becomes toxic, widows and orphans have to sell out to speculators at rock-bottom prices. The speculators negotiate a "hair cut" in which they receive a higher recovery than the widows and orphans in the form of bonds of a now-sustainable debt which can be unloaded on a new generation of widows and orphans. The only fly in the ointment to the bankster's plan is even more rapacious lawyers who "hold out" for face value with the threat of endless international litigation. Tsipras, to his credit, stated that he wasn't going to play that game. Now, he is. Pathetic.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Don't get fooled. Union of Centrists is a joke party headed by a man with clear mental issues that makes Beppe Grillo look like a real statesman.
No serious party will ever even think to hold any kind of talks and legitimize them.

Why is EK getting such a surge in support in the polls this election?  It is about voting for a non-mainstream non-establishment but centrist/pro-Euro/liberal party?

It's simply a protest vote against the mainstream parties. I doubt that most people know what the party stands for or who are its candidates, besides president Vasilis Leventis.
Think about voters in the US, disgusted at both parties, that decide to vote en masse for Vermin Supreme.

[politicus]

Like last time the two rival Maoist parties the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Greece and the Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) are running a joint list called the Marxist-Leninist Communist Parties of Greece.

[BundouYMB]

Don't get fooled. Union of Centrists is a joke party headed by a man with clear mental issues that makes Beppe Grillo look like a real statesman.
No serious party will ever even think to hold any kind of talks and legitimize them.

Why is EK getting such a surge in support in the polls this election?  It is about voting for a non-mainstream non-establishment but centrist/pro-Euro/liberal party?

Supported by some disgruntled ND barons.

[politicus]

The small Liberal party Drasi has teamed up with Potami and its leader Theodoros Skylakakis and a few others are included on Potami’s list

ANTARSYA and the Trotskyist Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK) are running on a joint list.

[politicus]

Tsipras's actions were little less that George Hubert Walker Bush's "Read my lips! No new taxes!" on steroids. When faced with public debts that cannot be paid he ran on a platform of taking Greece's medicine by defaulting. Just as Bush opted for the expediency of tax increases over the pain of cutting the budget, Tsipras opted for the expediency playing the supplicant over the pain of default.

When running for reelection Bush, after winning the first Iraqi war, received a McGovern/Hoover percentage of the vote. I'm kinda mystified why Tsipras isn't polling 2.5%.

Also strange is why people are debating the relative merits of the CDU-CSU-Syrinza coalition over the CDU-CSU-ND coalition. Why not just run Angela Merkel and be done with it? The choice seems one of tweedle-dee vs. tweedle-stumme to me.

The history of these situations is that government run up massive debts selling its bonds to widows and orphans. When the debt become too large, the creditworthiness of nation is called into question raising interest rates and precipitating a "death spiral." As the debt becomes toxic, widows and orphans have to sell out to speculators at rock-bottom prices. The speculators negotiate a "hair cut" in which they receive a higher recovery than the widows and orphans in the form of bonds of a now-sustainable debt which can be unloaded on a new generation of widows and orphans. The only fly in the ointment to the bankster's plan is even more rapacious lawyers who "hold out" for face value with the threat of endless international litigation. Tsipras, to his credit, stated that he wasn't going to play that game. Now, he is. Pathetic.

Brillant analysis!

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

As much as I don't want to see ND back in, there are few parties in history that have truly earned defeat as much as Syriza has these past few months, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, whatever happens happens I guess, not like it'll change the situation

[Landslide Lyndon]

Don't get fooled. Union of Centrists is a joke party headed by a man with clear mental issues that makes Beppe Grillo look like a real statesman.
No serious party will ever even think to hold any kind of talks and legitimize them.

Why is EK getting such a surge in support in the polls this election?  It is about voting for a non-mainstream non-establishment but centrist/pro-Euro/liberal party?

Supported by some disgruntled ND barons.

wot?

[politicus]

There will be a debate between all party leaders except Golden Dawn on 9/11, but KKE refuses to participate, calling it a "bourgeois sham".

Tsipras and Meimarakis will go mano a mano in a second debate on 14/11.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Like last time the two rival Maoist parties the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Greece and the Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) are running a joint list called the Marxist-Leninist Communist Parties of Greece.

It'll never last.

Are the Ecologists going to throw their lot in with Syriza again?

[politicus]

Like last time the two rival Maoist parties the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Greece and the Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) are running a joint list called the Marxist-Leninist Communist Parties of Greece.

It'll never last.

Are the Ecologists going to throw their lot in with Syriza again?

Not meant to last after the election, just a practical measure to increase their chances.

Yes, the Ecologists are running on Syriza's list.

[jaichind]

Metron: ND ahead

ND       24
Syriza   23.4
KKE       5.2
XA         5.1
Patomi   4.8
PASOK   4
EK         4
LAE       3.4
ANEL     2

[BundouYMB]

Bridging Europe: Big SYRIZA lead

SYRIZA -- 32.6%
ND -- 24%
LAE -- 7.5%
XA -- 7.4%
POTAMI -- 7.1%
KKE -- 6.8%
PASOK -- 3.8%
----------------------------
EK -- 2.9%
ANEL -- 2.4%

Poll happened between 1 and 3 September.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Something calling itself "VoicenNews" is regularly showing massively inflated results for the anti-establishment : Golden Dawn getting more than a tenth of the vote (the others show them with seven at most) is the most terrifying; but there are similarly inflated figures for the Communists, Union of Dentists, ANEL and LAE.

Conversely the polls showing ND leads and deflated populates are from two of the agencies that (disasterously) polled the referendum, so perhaps this freak agency is on the money.

[jaichind]

Something calling itself "VoicenNews" is regularly showing massively inflated results for the anti-establishment : Golden Dawn getting more than a tenth of the vote (the others show them with seven at most) is the most terrifying; but there are similarly inflated figures for the Communists, Union of Dentists, ANEL and LAE.

Conversely the polls showing ND leads and deflated populates are from two of the agencies that (disasterously) polled the referendum, so perhaps this freak agency is on the money.

Well, the 2 polls that had ND ahead are GPO and Metron.  In Jan 2015 elections both did not perform that badly but both did overpoll ND by around 2%. With that in mind most likely ND is still behind Syriza by 1% or so.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I'm the January election the polls were all in relative agreement though. None of this bizarre swings. Honestly I expect ND to win the bonus, but I wouldn't be surprised by anything really.

[Leftbehind]

Oh well, there's no point in SYRIZA winning anyway to carry out policies they fundamentally disagree with, and those LAE figures suggest the Greek public are unchanged in their refusal to see a future outside of the EU straitjacket, so may as well put the technocrats back in charge.

[politicus]

Yet another micro-party will compete. The Organization of Internationalist Communists of Greece, a Trotskyist group with roots back to a KKE split in the 30s and later joined by some Syndicalist groups. They got about 2200 votes last time and are unlikely to do better.

[Landslide Lyndon]

ND has the momentum.
SYRIZA was caught flat-footed not only by the voters desire for coalition governments but by the popularity of ND's new leader, Meimarakis. They honestly believed that Tsipras's personal charisma and youth would lead them (again) to an easy victory over his veteran (and much less charismatic) opponent.

[politicus]

Good news to Putin haters. The Organization for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Greece (OAKKE) is in!

It is a Maoist group, who mainly campaigns against a Russian conspiracy to corrupt the left and install its own fascist world regime. They claim Russian imperialism is currently the main threat to humanity, on the level Hitler was in the 1930s and 1940s.

So if you are a leftist Greek conspiracy theorist tired of blaming the EU and needing a fresh enemy they are you guys.

[Zanas]

If ND wins, and it seems likelier every day, the "left-wing parenthesis" will have worked, albeit a bit longer than they had expected in last December. Depressing, yet very enlightening on what to expect from all the actors on stage (ie. not much).

[politicus]

If ND wins, and it seems likelier every day, the "left-wing parenthesis" will have worked, albeit a bit longer than they had expected in last December. Depressing, yet very enlightening on what to expect from all the actors on stage (ie. not much).

Well, the Syria project never made much sense unless they were willing to take a chance and see if an actual Socialist society could work in 2015. They seemed never really to believe in their own ideology and instead relying on pure populism and extortion tactics. But that is likely the status of the modern far left in Europe. I wonder how many of them would actually try implementing their own platform if they got the chance.

[Zanas]

If ND wins, and it seems likelier every day, the "left-wing parenthesis" will have worked, albeit a bit longer than they had expected in last December. Depressing, yet very enlightening on what to expect from all the actors on stage (ie. not much).

Well, the Syria project never made much sense unless they were willing to take a chance and see if an actual Socialist society could work in 2015. They seemed never really to believe in their own ideology and instead relying on pure populism and extortion tactics. But that is likely the status of the modern far left in Europe. I wonder how many of them would actually try implementing their own platform if they got the chance.

Ironically, maybe the KKE would. Not necessarily for the best, though, even in my eyes...

Tsipras says he's open to cooperation with Pasok. Just without Venizelos and a few others.

RIP Syriza
RIP Greece
RIP politics.

[Zanas]

If ND wins, and it seems likelier every day, the "left-wing parenthesis" will have worked, albeit a bit longer than they had expected in last December. Depressing, yet very enlightening on what to expect from all the actors on stage (ie. not much).

Well, the Syria project never made much sense unless they were willing to take a chance and see if an actual Socialist society could work in 2015. They seemed never really to believe in their own ideology and instead relying on pure populism and extortion tactics. But that is likely the status of the modern far left in Europe. I wonder how many of them would actually try implementing their own platform if they got the chance.

Ironically, maybe the KKE would. Not necessarily for the best, though, even in my eyes...

Tsipras says he's open to cooperation with Pasok. Just without Venizelos and a few others.

RIP Syriza
RIP Greece
RIP politics.