Greek election - January 25th 2015

[politicus]

Please try not to be rude OK (''Everybody on this board knows that. Do not assume posters here to be ignorant of basic facts'').  The fact was worth of mentioning in that context, even here, not everyone is a specialist in Greek politics. There are some other points, where I have an opinion differing from yours. I will address these later.

I was not trying to be rude, but it was your first post on the forum and as a new poster you will be better received and get more enjoyment out of your time on Atlas if you follow certain well established norms.

You made a "let me tell you how it really is" post on the seventh page of a thread, which comes of as arrogant since it implies that all previous posts are written by ignoramuses who needs to be enlightened (+ your image of Greek politics seems dated). The general convention on the board is that you can make an opening post about basic facts if you create a thread or early in a new thread if the thread creator hasn't done it after a week or so (best to give posters a chance to return to their threads). Since people generally have a high knowledge level here it is best not to state basic facts ("Golden Dawn is a Neo-Nazi party") as if you were telling a hitherto unknown secret.

Try reading the entire thread from the start + the Greece General thread on the IG board to get a feel of the general level of knowledge and what sort of positions people have on the issues before reentering the debate. You will become a much better and more valued poster if you familiarize yourself with these things.

Also, only quote posts if you use and/or refer to the content in your argument and even then it is generally best just to quote relevant parts of a post. There is no need to quote an entire long post if you just address a post or poster on a more general level. When you quote the established practice is to place longer quotes in the start of your post. It looks weird quoting an entire post after you made your argument.

And: I meant it when I said welcome to the forum.

[politicus]

I've heard the comparison before that ANEL was essentially a Greek version of the Tea Party. If so, Makri is definitely sounding like their Sarah Palin

I wouldn't say that's accurate, at least not when it comes to ideology.  ANEL started as a one-man party led by Panos Kammenos a loud mouth ND MP from a very wealthy family who opposed austerity policies.  He founded the party after being expelled from ND for voting against the memoranda and was followed by a number of other ND MPs.  They tried to position themselves as a big tent, anti-austerity, patriotic party by recruiting members from both the left and the right.  One of them was former PASOK MP Giannis Dimaras who had formed this party (interestingly enough, the other leader of that party, after joining DIMAR is now running with ND).  Others such as this guy are full-fledged communists.

Another thing about them that is inaccurate is that they are xenophobic.  They are country-first types that are very vocal about foreign threats, but are not hostile towards immigrants and they have gone out of their way to distance themselves from Golden Dawn and LAOS.  

At some point before the 2012 election they looked like they could have had the success that SYRIZA eventually had, but their leader's clownish behavior as well as their laughable conspiracy theories alienated many voters.  One of the reasons they have been losing the little support they had is because they really don't have a position on pretty much any issue.  If I had to use one word to describe them it would probably be populists.

While it is not a racist party their platform includes (or at least included not long ago - I am not sure if it is still in it) a limit for immigrants to 2.5% of the population, which given the size of the immigrant population in Greece means there had to be deportations.

[politicus]

The view of a couple of prominent Greek politologists (Takis S. Pappas and Paris Aslanidis):

"The people are constructed mainly on ethnic terms, a language familiar to the
average conservative right-wing voter, while at the same time racist oratory is avoided,
and Golden Dawn is considered a purely fascist party. Apart from the ethnic definition of
the people, ANEL stresses other traditional themes of the conservative right agenda, such
as the role of the family and Greek Orthodox religion."

"The discourse of the ANEL is typically anchored on the traditional themes of the
populist radical right. The attack by foreign forces aims at the Greek nation and Christian
Orthodox traditions, while immigrants are seen as a weapon in the hands of the New
World Order. For this reason, the program of ANEL supplies a quota for immigrants, up
to a maximum of 2.5 percent of the total population."

[politicus]

Takis Pappas is also the author of excellent Populism and Crisis Politics in Greece. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan (2014). If anyone wants to dig a little deeper.

[politicus]

Ah, yes, meet our fellow Danish poster, she's quite a bit... I wouldn't say rude as much as uptight.

But even she seems to ignore that after reconvening, the new parliament would hold a maximum of three further rounds of voting for president : first a 3/5 majority vote (needing 180 votes), then 5 days later an absolute majority vote (needing 151 votes), then at last five days later a relative majority vote among the top two candidates of the previous round. See here. So Syriza doesn't need 180 votes for president, they just need 151, which is what they need to govern in any case.

So, yeah, we're all savvy and all, and you need to look a bit into what we already covered on the matter before making new posts or you'll come out as a bit arrogant.

And as for Philip Weisler, the same goes for you, but keep it cool, you'll blend in just fine.

Cheap shot - and you know it. There were some basic misunderstandings in what PW wrote, not just a misremembered fact as this one. The two are not comparable.

[politicus]

@Philip

Samaras has made moves to the social right in issues like immigration - that last thing he needs is a populist right revival, so making overtures towards the liberals on things like law and order could be anathema.

I also think you're being a bit generous to Potami by claiming they have any policy at all. I imagine Potami - and PASOK for that matter - would justify being in a Syriza led government (or at least offering supply and confidence votes) as "maintaining a stable government" and "respecting the voter's decision".

A party founded by a big ego TV personality like Stavros Theodorakis and reliant on his personal popularity is unlikely to be very principled about anything and its ideological coalition of leftists and neo-liberals are so broad that apart from being pro-European, anti-racist and pro civil rights they are unlikely to stand firm on anything. Immigration would be a problem in working with ND, since their right wing would give Samaras trouble if he compromised on this and civil rights would also cause trouble with the law and order crowd, so Potami-ND might actually be hard. Potami is also committed to standard social liberal "make middle class progressives feel good about themselves" policies which can only be implemented with the left. Given that Syriza is bound to move to the center on economic policy Syriza-Potami would work if it had to. Fairly pragmatic New Left + populist and fairly unprincipled Social Liberals should work.

[politicus]

A new poll by Metron Analysis gives Syriza a margin of 4.6% over ND and 147 seats, 4 seats up from last week. Polarization continues with 2/3 now voting for the two big parties. ANEL and MDS very close to the threshold. If ANEL gets under Syriza seems likely to get a majority with the current trend towards polarization.

Syriza 35.4% (147)
ND 30.8% (85)
Potami 7.1% (19)
Golden Dawn 5.4% (15)
KKE 5.1% (14)
Pasok 4.2% (12)
ANEL 3.0% ( 8 )
------
MDS 2.7%.


11.5% undecideds. Largest group was middle class women aged 35-44.

Self description among undecideds:

27% centrist
18% on the left
21% on the right
22%  ‘none of the above’.
12% NA

So roughly equal distribution with an over representation of centrists as one could expect.

[politicus]

I don't see why ND-The River wouldn't work. Limiting immigration is not an inherently fascistic position. As long as ND don't call the people "darkies" The River should be accepting of it.

No of course not, but like PP in Spain ND stretches quite far rightwards and given that Samaras has moved to the right rhetorically during the campaign it would be difficult for him just to adjust towards the center without alienating his right wing, so it would be hard to reach a compromise with Potami on immigration and civil rights/crime - and I think  this would be two areas where Potami may actually have some principles.

As an example: Pasok hasn't really been critical of stuff like Greece's very heavy handed treatment of refugees - Potami might. It is not just about the size of immigration, but also the treatment of them (as a hint I can say that there are four EU countries DK does not send refugee families with children back to: Bulgaria, Italy, Malta and Greece, so our authorities count the Greek conditions for refugees as worse than Romania and Cyprus).

Potami could provide support for the economic policy of an ND government, but if they were to actually enter government that would likely be with Syriza.  

There is the question of how much of NDs right wing Takis Baltakos took with him when he formed (hard right) ‘Roots’ (Rizes), but I think that was rather marginal.

EDT: He didn't get on the ballot, so marginal.

[politicus]

I wouldn't take for granted the point some people are underscoring here that some ND right-wingers who may have very socially conservative or anti-immigration views could be a major obstacle. I mean, in November 2011 the Greeks managed to form a pro-bailout coalition with even LAOS (!) represented in it. And LAOS is surely further to the right than ANEL, let alone ND.

The socially conservative views of some ND folks is simply not gonna be a major obstacle this time. The election is not about it this time. In some Western countries like, say, Holland, the immigration question is a very serious issue (we could see PVV forming a coalition with D'66 based on economic views only, but it ain't gonna happen as social issues are more prominent in Holland).

Given that ND is moving to the right on these issues to get the right wing vote that used to vote XA, ANEL and LAOS, but has left those parties immigration and terror fear are actually significant factors. Check some of the links to articles about this on the previous pages.

See fx:

Samaras links the Charlie Hebdo massacre to immigration.

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/samars-seeks-to-use-charlie-hebdo-massacre-for-electoral-gain

“SYRIZA is somewhere else, it wants to give mass citizenship insurance and social security to illegal immigrants. You see what is happening today in Europe, everything is changing in a dramatic way. In France the socialist Hollande brought the military out in the streets. Today in Paris there was a slaughter and here some people are inviting more illegal immigrants and giving out citizenship"

Also, Greek politics has on some areas moved on from 2010-12. The 2010-11 debt crisis and the resulting protests (with demonstrations and general strikes across the country) was an exceptional situation and you can not assume Greek politics works in exactly the same way now. That is what I meant by saying your image of Greek politics is dated. A factor like Syriza's (attempt of) transformation from protest party to potential governing party affects everything. ND can no longer scare moderate voters with irresponsible Syria and chaos as easily as before and need new attack lins. The near collapse of ANEL and exposure of Golden Dawn leaves free floating voters on the right wing, thereby tempting ND to pick them up. The Charlie Hebdo attack influences people's view of the world. Stuff happens and politicians react to it.

[politicus]

So I've averaged the last ten polls from ten different pollsters again, none dating from more than Jan 13th.

Syriza   35   (145)
ND   31,1   (85)
Potami   6,7   (18)
XA   5,9   (16)
KKE   5,4   (15)
Pasok   4,8   (13)
Anel   3,1   (8 )
KDS   2,6   
Autres   5,4

Anel makes it in all polls but 2, whereas KDS fails to make it in all polls but 3. Even without Anel, Syriza's not getting an absolute majority, they get stuck at 148 or 149. But the gap between Syriza and ND isn't shrinking : it's never less than 2.5, and sometimes as high as 5.5.   

Does that include the E-Voice poll from January 17? It has Syriza down to 33.9 and ANEL on 4.2.  and it doesn't look like E-Voice is a serious pollster.

[politicus]

Regarding the extreme parties it is worth remembering that the biggest group of undecideds describe themselves as centrists and that middle aged women are overrepresented, not the most likely group to vote radical. Most likely the centrist parties will do a bit better than the polls show. This seems most likely with Potami given their lack of bagage. I wouldn't be surprised if Potami does 2% better than the poll average. They seem to be just the kind of party our average undecided 35-44 year old low info female voter would pick in the voting booth.

[politicus]

Regarding the extreme parties it is worth remembering that the biggest group of undecideds describe themselves as centrists and that middle aged women are overrepresented, not the most likely group to vote radical. Most likely the centrist parties will do a bit better than the polls show. This seems most likely with Potami given their lack of bagage. I wouldn't be surprised if Potami does 2% better than the poll average. They seem to be just the kind of party our average undecided 35-44 year old low info female voter would pick in the voting booth.

Also likely that the far-right under poll because... far-right.

It looks like Golden Dawn genuinely are down to their core. They have been exposed as a criminal organization and with ND being tougher on immigration and law and order and ANEL still being around you really need to be very racist and authoritarian to go that way. I doubt they under poll much this time. LAOS doesn't seem to have much of a stigma attached to them and they are very marginal anyway.

[politicus]

There is of course also the possibility that the undecideds simply stay home. What kind of turnout we can expect is one of the things I am really unsure about.

[politicus]

A group of political analysts have done a meta analysis (which includes some weighing of the polling data) from the 13 polls conducted January 7-15 by MARC, METRON ANALYSIS, MRB, PALMOS, KAPPA RESEARCH, PUBLIC ISSUE, DATA, the University of Macedonia, RASS, PULSE and ΑLCO (which are apparently the ones considered methodologically reliable).

The result is:

SYRIZA 34.7%

New Democracy 30.2%

Potami 7.0%

Golden Dawn 6.2%

KKE 5.6%

PASOK 4.7%

ANEL 3%

Movement of Democratic Socialists 2.6%

Other 6.0 %
---------------------
Undecided 10.9%

Abstentions 4.1%

The polls conducted in that time span listed in Wiki. The pollsters used in bold.

14–15 Jan To the Point
14–15 Jan Rass
14–15 Jan Interview
12–15 Jan Palmos Analysis    
10–15 Jan Public Issue    
13–14 Jan Pulse RC
12–13 Jan Metrisi
11–13 Jan Alco
11–12 Jan Rass
10–12 Jan PaMak
9–11 Jan    Interview
9 Jan    MRB    
7–9 Jan    Data RC    
7–9 Jan    Alco   
7–9 Jan    Metrisi    
6–9 Jan    Pulse RC   
2–9 Jan    Public Issue   
7–8 Jan    E-Voice
7–8 Jan    Kapa Research
7–8 Jan    Rass
5–8 Jan    Metron Analysis
5–8 Jan    Marc
5–8 Jan    Palmos Analysis

The info I got that E-Voice is junk seems confirmed by this. Interview, PaMak, Metrisi and To the Point have also been disregarded by the experts.

[politicus]

Papandreou want a referendum on a new agreement between Greece and the lenders... Given how it went the first time that is truly bizarre.

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/george-papandreou-asks-for-a-referendum-again

"The times may have moved on, but George Papandreou apparently has not."

[politicus]

Syriza wants to raise  the minimum wage from 540 euro to 751 euro, which will also increase minimum unemployment benefits - since they are 80% of salaries. Unemployment is pt. stuck just over 25%. Youth unemployment is around 60%.

Their economic program further includes:

- Re-orient the public sector towards welfare and education and hire new workers in those sectors. There are 50% fewer people working in education and healthcare compared with five years ago, due to a limit of one person hired for every 10 that retired.

- Getting banks that have undergone recapitalization back under state control and fire (incompetent) old managers that have been allowed to stay despite public money used to bail out the banks. Using state banks to provide liquidity to small and medium size businesses.

- To facilitate credit to young people who want to set up businesses "with a strong social ethics" (low-cost food, green tech, publishing, media, everything increasing "knowledge capital")

- Renegotiation of the Memorandum (that makes loans conditional on budget cuts and reforms) incl. debt reduction.

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/syrizas-first-act-in-office-raise-minimum-wage

[politicus]

Health Minister Makis Voridis from the ND right wing has the provoked an outcry with some very controversial civil war style rhetoric:

"Our generation will not surrender the country to the Left. We will not let them, no matter what it is that we will have to do!"

"That which our grandfathers defended bravely with guns, we will defend with our vote on Sunday. So that we all know what we're talking about."

He also called the election  "a massive ideological collision between the world of freedom and the homeland, between the values of the homeland, religion and family which we represent and the levelling which is represented by the Left".

Voridis’s conscious choice to phrase the election in terms that recall the civil war is considered provocative and dangerous by many.

This image is re-enforced by Voridis’ background. He led the youth wing of EPEN, a far right party founded by the leader of the 1967 coup Georgios Papadopoulos. After it folded in 1996 he founded the Hellenic Front modeled on Front National and established close ties with Jean Marie Le Pen. When it failed Voridis became a member of LAOS, entering the coalition government with that party in 2011. In 2012 Voridis left the collapsing LAOS and joined ND.

SYRIZA has condemned his comments and accused Voridis of using divisive rhetoric reminiscent of the civil war and using slogans of the military dictatorship. They also want Samaras to "provide explanations".

Interesting how far Samaras will allow his own right wingers to go in order to scoop up the voters left homeless after the exposure of Golden Dawn and partial collapse of ANEL. It could backfire and send moderate centre-right voters to Potami (or the couch).

[politicus]

Voridis at the congress of Parti de la France, an anti-Marine FN breakaway founded in 2009 by Carl Lang.



For those knowledgeable of French politics: I assume Lang broke with FN because he didn't like Marine le Pen and the modernizers "going soft"?

[politicus]

Worst election add so far from a major party (with English subtitles). ND trying to humanize Samaras by showing him with awestruck football boys. Totally natural..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrpxeKef2R8#t=27

"If a country wants to play ball it needs a stadium. We are building that stadium"


ANEL is going with Kammenos teaching a cute boy (symbolically named Alexis..) how to run a model train:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPDo5MnwhOI


Both adds translated by the guy who run this excellent blog:

http://whenthecrisish**tthefan.com/


Lots of snarky comments to them on #greekelections incl.: https://twitter.com/OmairaGill/status/554728370098167808/photo/1

And everything will obviously suddenly change to the better if you vote Syriza.. (still more classic and less lame)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT9VkjxXRzY

[politicus]

I like discussing politics and all, but really my main passion is for bizarre election ads, so I thank you for that politicus.

Could they have made Samaras look any more creepy?

And that second one is really strange as well. I can't make much sense of the train metaphor, knowing what I know about ANEL. I also enjoyed the boy's hilariously pithy responce ("well it turns out you were actually vaguely helpful!")

"Necessary Good" is a terrible slogan, but maybe it comes across better in Greek.

The boy is very symbolically named Alexis, so Kammenos is the competent "uncle" that will teach the children in Syriza how to keep Greece on the track (to a better future). He is the necessary good uncle that will make sure an anti-austerity victory doesn't end in a leftist trainwreck.

So a corrective and guide for a Syriza government (which seems far fetched at this point).

ANEL is in a strange place because the party is basically useless even if they get in. They can not work with ND because of austerity and they are too small, too right wing and too crazy for Syriza. But they still need to convince some voters that it makes sense to vote for them, so apparently they try to pretend that the old anti-austerity ties from 2010-12 still exist.

[politicus]

This one is also interesting because it illustrates the scaremongering tone of ND's campaign. ND claims that Syriza can't protect the Greeks because they will disarm the police, abolish maximum security prisons for terrorists and "unregulate" immigration.  "Syriza will unfortify Greece". Starts with a Je suis Charlie-sign of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALuYIUJkQ4w

[politicus]

Syriza's lead widens here in the final week according to three polls published yesterday and today.

University of Macedonia gives them a 6.5% lead. Up from 4.5%. Syriza: 33.5% - ND 27%

Alco gives them a 4.6% lead. Up from 3.5% last week. Syriza: 33.1% vs. ND 28.5%

GPO gives them 4.0%. Up from 3.2% two weeks ago.  Syriza 30.4%. ND 26.4%

[politicus]

Tsipras frees the dove on Epiphany.. pretty cool picture in a way.





Syriza has been trying to play down their reputation for atheism and Tsipras has visited monasteries and met with religious leaders. ND still claims all icons will be removed from public buildings and schools if the godless left wins, but it doesn't look like Syriza is going French style  laïcité. Would also be a foolish distraction from the real problems, but some of their more true leftist members are apparently not too happy about the leadership going soft on the church. It will be interesting if they will try to redistribute church land as they have promised earlier. I actually doubt it.

[politicus]

It's kinda funny that someone would label ANEL as ''too crazy'' for SYRIZA. The former is an anti-austerity break-away from the mainstream conservatives..

Of course, there is the immigration issue, however, I firmly refuse to beg pardon for my view, that controlling open-borders immigration is not necessarily bad.

A Conservative party in a country with the history of Greece (civil war, military dictatorship etc.) is bound to have some crazies. As you can see with Voridis they have let people with a background on the far right (as in a Greek version of Front National) join and the ND Secretary General of the government Panayiotis Baltakos recently got fired for contacts to Golden Dawn and formed a far-right party called Rizes (Roots).

Most of the ND are run of the mill European Conservatives, but they stretch further right than a standard Conservative party. So being an ND breakaway is no guarantee for not being crazy. Whereas former Communists going towards the center are often quite reasonable and moderate politicians. There are plenty of examples of this in postwar European political history.

I will repost an evaluation of ANEL I wrote on the basis of the views of two leading Greek politologists (Takis Pappas from the European University Institute in Florence and Paris Aslanidis from the University of Macedonia in Thessalanoki) as presented in "Greek Populism: A political drama in five acts" (with my own conclusion at the end):

ANEL are basically conspiracy theorists. "Behind all the toiling and suffering of the Greek people lie the forces of the New World Order and their scheme for global domination". All governing coalitions after 2011 are accused of being collaborators with the NWO, which will try to take over Greece in three stages:

1) Deprive Greeks of private property (through taxes, inflation etc. )

2) Do the same with public property (selling off national assets to foreigners)

3) Undermine and disband the armed forces, thus dissolving the Greek state into a European federation under German rule - a  "4th Reich"  (lots of references to Nazi assault and occupation of Greece during WW2).

(current rulers are of course nothing but collaborators and the "regime" a product of German economic imperialism and  lacks all kind of democratic legitimacy)

There is an ongoing attack by foreign forces at the Greek nation and Christian Orthodox traditions. Immigrants are seen as a weapon in the hands of the New World Order (their program demands a quota for immigrants with a maximum of 2.5% foreigners in the population).

Economy: Very low corporate taxes (8%) and VAT to kick-start the economy and focus on export-oriented growth, but also zero layoffs in the public sector since a large protective state is "an indispensable provider of welfare and security to the Greek citizenry" and Greece of course needs a strong military to protect the nation, so defense expenses needs to go up.

It is a classic populist low taxes and lots of welfare program with no thorns among the roses (for ethnic Greeks).

...

ANEL are conspiracy theories + populism + xenophobia + grandstanding, posturing and big talk by their pompous buffoon leader. It is not a serious "Conservative" party in any way. Parts of their official platform are relevant in an evaluation, but you need to put it into context. You can not understand them without considering their bizarre worldview.

[politicus]

ECR is a very mixed bag of right wing populists, libertarians, National Conservatives and mainstream Conservatives like the Tories and Fianna Fail. You can not deduce anything about ANEL from their membership of this apart from the party being right wing and not Neo-Nazi.

It stretches from the Tories over AfD and PiS to (moderate) right wing populists such as DPP/True Finns in Scandinavia to the Croatian Party of Rights dr. Ante Starčević.