Greece General Discussion

[Bacon King]

I figured this would be a good thread to have. I've regained my interest in Greek politics recently, having found that doing a bit of research on the topic is an excellent way to procrastinate, so I can even make a big and informative first post!


Brief Intro: Greek Political Parties

ND: New Democracy, the center-right party that's in favor of austerity and the bailouts. Was a member of the old two-partyish system before everything went crazy. They're the main partner of the current coalition government.

PASOK: Panhellinic Socialist Movement, the center-left party that also supports austerity as a necessity, which has caused them to lose a lot of their supporters. They currently support the government and were the main opponents to ND before all these new parties showed up and PASOK imploded.

KKE: The Greek Communist Party, unreformed since the days of the civil war. They've been around for ages and are always in Parliament winning roughly the same share of the vote, but they're notoriously stubborn and have only entered a coalition once, for about a year, since the fall of the dictatorship.

SYRIZA: The Coalition of the Radical Left, the second largest party (or, technically, "party group", because they're a coalition of dozens of different parties and organizations) in Parliament and the most prominent opponents to austerity.

ANEL: Independent Greeks. A rightist anti-austerity party that stole a fair bit of votes from ND to enter parliament in 2012.

DIMAR: The Democratic Left. A small and new party that campaigned with a rather nuanced (some would say "vague") approach to the bailout and austerity. They joined the coalition government with PASOK and ND, ostensibly to provide leverage so that ND wouldn't try anything too extreme.

XA: The Golden Dawn. Some consider them Neo-Nazis, but some think they're just Nazis. Insane extremely rightist party that loves fascist symbolism and really hates immigrants, Germany, and everything else non-Greek.

The Greek Parliament has 300 seats. 250 seats are awarded proportionally to the nationwide popular vote (with a three percent threshold) while the other 50 seats are given as a "bonus" to the party that polls the highest. Because of this 50 seat bonus, first place is very important!


Division of Parliament

ND: 125 (129 were elected)
PASOK: 25 (33 were elected)
DIMAR: 16 (17 were elected)

total seats for government: 166 (was 179 after June elections)

SYRIZA: 71
ANEL: 20
XA: 18
KKE: 12

independents: 12 (4 former ND, 7 former PASOK, 1 former DIMAR)
RIKKSY: 1 (a former PASOK MP who started "Radical Movement of Social Democratic Alliance")


Most recent opinion polls

http://www.grreporter.info/en/syriza_first_party_alexis_tsipras_not_convincing_prime_minister/8215

VPRC Marc Pulse SYRIZA    31.5%    28.8%    26.0% ND 26.5% 26.4% 21.5% PASOK 5.0% 7.5% 6.5% DIMAR 5.5% 6.1% 4.0% ANEL 6.5% 6.9% 7.5% KKE 6.5% 5.9% 5.5% XA 12.5% 11.8% 13.5% other 6.0% 6.6% 6.0%

Yeah... that's a pollster consensus with Syriza first, ND second, and Golden Dawn third. For a sombering thought, note that Golden Dawn were significantly underpolled by everyone in both the May and June elections last year.


Recent news from Greece

Syriza is attempting to develop a more unified party structure so it can better appeal to voters and appear more capable of governing.

Samaras is talking about a cabinet reshuffle; he wants PASOK and DIMAR to become more involved in the cabinet but is also thinking about kicking out a couple of DIMAR's Ministers because they're flaky on austerity.

Syriza leader Tsipras predicts new elections will be held soon. I think I might tend to agree with him, given the rates of defection PASOK is seeing and DIMAR's lack of unity (three DIMAR members voted against the party on the austerity package, but unlike other party's dissenters they weren't kicked out).

[Bacon King]

I'll go ahead and cross-post this stuff here too, since that other thread was just weird.

So I got curious and ran the numbers on recent the recent polls I could find from Greece. Had no idea PASOK was polling so horribly or Golden Dawn doing so well; I haven't been following Greece lately at all. If an election was held today, this would be the number of seats per party in the Greek Parliament:

SYRIZA: 126 - 139
ND: 63 - 71
XA: 32 - 40
ANEL: 17 - 21
KKE: 16 - 21
PASOK: 14 - 20
DIMAR: 9 - 16

PASOK would enter a coalition looong before KKE does. Or ANEL for that matter. Especially if it's only a rump-PASOK left that's desperate to stay relevant. Of course, some polls' results have a majority for Syriza + DIMAR alone, but who knows what'll happen by the time the eventual elections occur.

IIRC, Syriza is ahead of ND by 3 to 9 points, depending on the poll. Keep in mind Greek pollsters try to predict how undecideds will break in their top line numbers, so most methodology differences between pollsters will be in those assumptions.

What happens in the event of a tie?

The Greek Constitution requires that if a vote is tied, then a second vote is held on the same thing, and if the second vote is also a tie, then it fails. Also, motions of confidence explicitly require an absolute majority: 150 votes or less and the government falls, even if some MP's vote Present.

[Bacon King]

Bump

Samaras just had a confidence motion pass to reinforce party discipline ahead of a bunch of difficult austerity votes. The confidence motion had 155 votes, which notably is less than the 180 they will need to prevent new elections next spring

[Marston]

Didn't a bunch of GD MP's (including their leader) get arrested a while back? Whatever happened with that?

[swl]

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_01/12/2014_545056

It seems like Tsipras has been consulting a lot on defense and foreign affairs lately, including with the current government. It looks a bit like he is taking a crash course on these topics. My understanding is that he's getting seriously prepared to become prime minister.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Just so everyone's up-to-date with everyone's favourite joke party, PASOK are renaming themselves the Democratic Party. As expected, they can't even do that right - Wikipedia maintains they changed their name at the start of this month, but the media still seem intent on calling them PASOK. Oh yeah, and Papandreou is sulking.

[politicus]

Just so everyone's up-to-date with everyone's favourite joke party, PASOK are renaming themselves the Democratic Party.

Oh, the irony.. 

I think the US Democrats should rename themselves PASOK, that would be fitting.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think the US Democrats should rename themselves PASOK, that would be fitting.

the Pan American Socialists of Obama and Klinton?

[Famous Mortimer]

Holy shyt. They renamed themselves after the Democrats to seem MORE left-wing?

[politicus]

I don't think it really deserves a separate thread on the IE board, because it's just the parliament voting, but the Greeks have accelerated their presidential election to December 17 (even if the term of current president Karolos Papoulias doesn't expire before early March). They need 180 votes to elect one and if they can't it will lead to a parliamentary election.

Samaras will make his choice of candidate known tomorrow. If they fail on the 17th there will be a second poll on December 22 and a third and final round on December 27. If they don't get a candidate elected in the third round Samaras will be forced to call an election, which according to Greek political journalists will be either January 25 or February 1.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2014/dec/08/japans-recession-deeper-german-industrial-output-live

[politicus]

The background is that the Euro-zone countries have just given Greece a 2 month extension on their  loan package and the government says they don't want to risk uncertainty. They claim the move will:

"prevent the opposition from undermining Greece's economy and directing messages of political uncertainty to financial markets"

[Yelnoc]

The background is that the Euro-zone countries have just given Greece a 2 month extension on their  loan package and the government says they don't want to risk uncertainty. They claim the move will:

"prevent the opposition from undermining Greece's economy and directing messages of political uncertainty to financial markets"

I can't see a scenario where the opposition (SYRIZA) doesn't win a plurality. I also can't see them forming a government. They won't win a majority of seats, and none of the other parties are viable coalition partners. SYRIZA won't work with PASOK, the party of austerity, and of course KKE won't doesn't even acknowledge SYRIZA. The only right-wing party that might enter a coalition with SYRIZA is ANEL, but that would be a very unstable and short-lived government.

With that in mind, I have to wonder what is going to happen with this extension and how the markets will react over the next two months. I'm not very optimistic.

[Bacon King]

Is there anybody who could get 180 votes? I don't see any,way to avoid early elections.

[Bacon King]

The background is that the Euro-zone countries have just given Greece a 2 month extension on their  loan package and the government says they don't want to risk uncertainty. They claim the move will:

"prevent the opposition from undermining Greece's economy and directing messages of political uncertainty to financial markets"

I can't see a scenario where the opposition (SYRIZA) doesn't win a plurality. I also can't see them forming a government. They won't win a majority of seats, and none of the other parties are viable coalition partners. SYRIZA won't work with PASOK, the party of austerity, and of course KKE won't doesn't even acknowledge SYRIZA. The only right-wing party that might enter a coalition with SYRIZA is ANEL, but that would be a very unstable and short-lived government.

With that in mind, I have to wonder what is going to happen with this extension and how the markets will react over the next two months. I'm not very optimistic.

PASOK wouldn't enter a coalition with SYRIZA, but I'm sure the Democratic Party would consider it!

Non-sarcastically there's also the possibility of Potami as a junior partner

[politicus]

Is there anybody who could get 180 votes? I don't see any,way to avoid early elections.

I suppose they could agree on a well respected non-political figure (artist, scientist etc.) if they really wanted to, but I doubt there is any will to think out of the box.

Not that it matter much, but according to Wiki it's actually 200 in both the first and second ballot, and then declines to 180 on the third ballot.

[Famous Mortimer]

If SYRIZA, PASOK, and the KKE have a majority, they will form a government

SYRIZA isn't going to reject PASOK if it makes the difference between forming or not forming a government, they're not stupid.

Same with the KKE. You can't use their past behavior to predict how they would react in this situation because there's never been a situation like this in the past.

[Yelnoc]

The background is that the Euro-zone countries have just given Greece a 2 month extension on their  loan package and the government says they don't want to risk uncertainty. They claim the move will:

"prevent the opposition from undermining Greece's economy and directing messages of political uncertainty to financial markets"

I can't see a scenario where the opposition (SYRIZA) doesn't win a plurality. I also can't see them forming a government. They won't win a majority of seats, and none of the other parties are viable coalition partners. SYRIZA won't work with PASOK, the party of austerity, and of course KKE won't doesn't even acknowledge SYRIZA. The only right-wing party that might enter a coalition with SYRIZA is ANEL, but that would be a very unstable and short-lived government.

With that in mind, I have to wonder what is going to happen with this extension and how the markets will react over the next two months. I'm not very optimistic.

PASOK wouldn't enter a coalition with SYRIZA, but I'm sure the Democratic Party would consider it!

Non-sarcastically there's also the possibility of Potami as a junior partner

Ah, I had forgotten about The River. Isn't that a lot of ex-Potami and DIMAR people? I guess it's a possibility. Though I have my doubts that any of the "Serious People" parties want to attach themselves to SYRIZA. And honestly, I can see a number of people within SYRIZA not wanting to form a government. They are at the zenith of their power now. Once they become the government, they have to make a decision which will either cost them most of their votes or plunge Greece down a very scary path.

If SYRIZA, PASOK, and the KKE have a majority, they will form a government

SYRIZA isn't going to reject PASOK if it makes the difference between forming or not forming a government, they're not stupid.

Same with the KKE. You can't use their past behavior to predict how they would react in this situation because there's never been a situation like this in the past.

If you're unaware, KKE is the last remaining old-style Stalinist party in Europe. The median age of its Politburo is in the 70s. The leadership have repeatedly denounced SYRIZA as revisionists and splitters (SYRIZA left KKE in the 90s to form a new party) and refuses to work with them in any way. A few years ago, when KKE joined with the police to beat the hell out of protestors, a lot of the people they were beating on were SYRIZA members and voters. The two do not play nice.

[politicus]

If SYRIZA, PASOK, and the KKE have a majority, they will form a government

SYRIZA isn't going to reject PASOK if it makes the difference between forming or not forming a government, they're not stupid.

Same with the KKE. You can't use their past behavior to predict how they would react in this situation because there's never been a situation like this in the past.

KKE can best be understood as a political sect where a group of people cling to the anachronistic beliefs of their forefathers long after they have died out in the rest of the world. An American parallel would be if Father Coughliln's National Union for Social Justice had survived WW2 and still had dedicated supporters, who kept reelecting a dozen Congressmen time and again.

[politicus]

The latest poll:

Syriza 32.5    
ND 26.5    
Pasok 8.0
Anel   4.0    
Golden Dawn 7.5    
Dimar 1.0    
KKE 6.5    
Potami 7.5    
Others 6.0

Syriza/Potami are at 40% alone (and have a solid majority with Pasok). KKE are irrelevant at the moment. ANEL is quite close to the 3% threshold and actually under (2.6%) in the second latest poll, if they don't get in things will be slightly easier.   

With the 50 seat bonus 40% will be enough to a majority.

[Famous Mortimer]

If PASOK doesn't enter into a coalition with SYRIZA, it will probably split into two parties over the issue.

[politicus]

If PASOK doesn't enter into a coalition with SYRIZA, it will probably split into two parties over the issue.

There are already some splinter parties (Agreement for the New Greece, Dynamic Greece and the New Reformers), which were part of Elia for the Euro-elections.

40% to Syriza/Potami with about 7% wasted votes will give them 108 seats, if you add the bonus that's a majority of 158. If ANEL is out this will be more solid. There is a good chance Pasok will be irrelevant.

Metron even had Syriza/Potami at 43.7% combined on December 1-3.

[Famous Mortimer]

I was thinking a more major split between Papandreou and Venizelos.

[politicus]

I was thinking a more major split between Papandreou and Venizelos.

If they are not needed and Syriza doesn't want them there would be no basis for a split.

[Famous Mortimer]

I can't imagine how they wouldn't be needed. It would be risky to depend on The River alone.

I also think it's odd you people keep talking about SYRIZA "not wanting" PASOK. They don't want PASOK because they've been promoting austerity. If PASOK joined a SYRIZA led coalition, they wouldn't keep promoting austerity, at least not nearly as much as they do now.

SYRIZA doesn't like PASOK because of PASOK's policies. If PASOK's policies changed, SYRIZA would have no reason to keep disliking them.

[Famous Mortimer]

If you're unaware, KKE is the last remaining old-style Stalinist party in Europe. The median age of its Politburo is in the 70s. The leadership have repeatedly denounced SYRIZA as revisionists and splitters (SYRIZA left KKE in the 90s to form a new party) and refuses to work with them in any way. A few years ago, when KKE joined with the police to beat the hell out of protestors, a lot of the people they were beating on were SYRIZA members and voters. The two do not play nice.

Those clashes took place in 2009, when ND and PASOK were still the largest two parties and no one had any idea who, if anyone, was going to break the two party system. KKE and SYRIZA were both minor parties competing with each other to see who would lead the left. That battle is over now, SYRIZA won and the dynamic is now changed.