Greece is the Word(An Election Thread)

[Shrillland]

After the EU elections, where Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' Syriza fared quite badly, Tsipras has announced the dissolution of Parliament and has called for elections "As soon as possible" which puts the date at July 7. So, we get to enjoy that most chaotic of votes, a Greek General Election, a full four months ahead of schedule...and much to the delight of the conservative New Democracy Party, which has been leading polls for over three years.

Parliament is made up of 300 seats, 250 chosen by PR in 59 regional constituencies with a 3% threshold, and the remaining 50 seats(Despite Syriza's best efforts) are a majority bonus given to the top seat-getter.

So, let's meet the parties, many of which you know by heart:

New Democracy(ND) led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Centre-right, Liberal Conservative, Christian Democratic, Pro-European

Coalition of the Radical Left(Syriza) led by current PM Alexis Tsipras: Left Wing, Alter-globalist, Left Populist, Democratic Socialist, Left Nationalist, Soft Eurosceptic

Movement for Change(KINAL) led by Fofi Gennimata: Centre-left, Social Democratic, Social Liberal, Pro-European

Golden Dawn led by Nikolaos Michaloliaokos: Far Right, Neo-Nazi, Metaxist, Ultranationalist, Hard Eurosceptic

Communist Party of Greece(KKE) led by Dimitras Koutsoumpas: Far Left, Communist

Greek Solution led by Kyriakos Velopoulos: Right Wing, Orthodox Nationalist, National Conservative, Pro-Russian, Eurosceptic, RIght Populist

Union of Centrists(EK) led by Vassilis Leventis: Centrist, Pro-European, Venizelist, Liberal, Economic Liberal

European Realistic Disobedience Front(MeRA25) led by Yanis Varoufakis: Soft Euroscpetic, Pro-European, Progressive, Liberal Socialist

And there are other parties too like Popular Unity and so on. So, who do you support, NSG?

I stand with Syriza myself. They've still got work to do fixing Greece's economy, but I think they can pull it off. I also like KINAL, however.

EDIT: The date has officially been confirmed as Sunday, July 7.

[Outer Sparta]

The River and Syriza are my top choices, though it will be hard for Syriza to retain control.

[Bienenhalde]

I am not sure whether to support New Democracy or Movement for Change.

[Dresderstan]

New Democracy, hands down.

[Chan Island]

I wonder why Tsipras called this election he surely knows he'll lose. Suppose there's honour in going out on your own terms.

It's a pity, with hind sight. That government promised something interesting, but then failed to deliver. And now Yanis Varoufakis is going around being a surprisingly far-sighted commentator and they are going to lose power come July.

[World Anarchic Union]

I wonder why Tsipras called this election he surely knows he'll lose. Suppose there's honour in going out on your own terms.

I can answer this, how I see it at least. Tsipras and Syriza didn’t expect to lose by that great of a percentage. They can’t turn that around in just four months, which was how much time they had. So, they decided to, instead, go for elections now, to avoid perhaps a widening of the margin come September and to be seen as different from New Democracy and generally “the old”, which at a similar turn of events in 2014, had declined to call for elections. Basically, since these elections were seen and promoted both by ND and Syriza as a testament to how much trust there is to the current government, and since Tsipras had promised that he would call for elections if the difference was too great, he decided to go that way and be seen, or try to be seen at least, as someone who stays true to his word and isn’t a hypocrite, and Syriza similarly a party of values.

[Shofercia]

Can someone explain to me how Irridentism, Liberal Democracy, and Economic Liberalism are supposed to work out for Greece? I take it that Union of Centrists are centrists in name only, right?

I wonder why Tsipras called this election he surely knows he'll lose. Suppose there's honour in going out on your own terms.

I can answer this, how I see it at least. Tsipras and Syriza didn’t expect to lose by that great of a percentage. They can’t turn that around in just four months, which was how much time they had. So, they decided to, instead, go for elections now, to avoid perhaps a widening of the margin come September and to be seen as different from New Democracy and generally “the old”, which at a similar turn of events in 2014, had declined to call for elections. Basically, since these elections were seen and promoted both by ND and Syriza as a testament to how much trust there is to the current government, and since Tsipras had promised that he would call for elections if the difference was too great, he decided to go that way and be seen, or try to be seen at least, as someone who stays true to his word and isn’t a hypocrite, and Syriza similarly a party of values.

That certainly makes sense.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Greek Solution sound decent, would like a few pro-Russian voices in Europe.

[Shrillland]

Can someone explain to me how Irridentism, Liberal Democracy, and Economic Liberalism are supposed to work out for Greece? I take it that Union of Centrists are centrists in name only, right?

I can answer this, how I see it at least. Tsipras and Syriza didn’t expect to lose by that great of a percentage. They can’t turn that around in just four months, which was how much time they had. So, they decided to, instead, go for elections now, to avoid perhaps a widening of the margin come September and to be seen as different from New Democracy and generally “the old”, which at a similar turn of events in 2014, had declined to call for elections. Basically, since these elections were seen and promoted both by ND and Syriza as a testament to how much trust there is to the current government, and since Tsipras had promised that he would call for elections if the difference was too great, he decided to go that way and be seen, or try to be seen at least, as someone who stays true to his word and isn’t a hypocrite, and Syriza similarly a party of values.

That certainly makes sense.

Well, here's the twelve points of their party manifesto:

1. To reduce the salary of all electors by 50%, the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, ministers, deputies, mayors, regional governors, as well as drastically reduce expenses for consultants, retired, detached and collaborators of all above.

2. For the abolition of the pension for current and past members, ministers, presidents of the Republic, Prime Ministers and those who have occupied all kinds of offices in the grades of local government.

3. For the purpose of identifying by means of a special plan, retrospectively, 10 years of all public sector debt, DEKOs and municipalities and regions, and their transfer to the private sector, in order to reduce public spending and to reward the conscientious civil servants.

4. For the introduction of income criteria for all benefits, tax exemptions and pensions for all citizens, that with the money saved by having and holding to support vulnerable groups of citizens (disabled, unemployed, single-parent families, students, large families, farmers, soldiers ).

5. To define the number of members in parliament to 200 as permitted by the Constitution and later to 150 (when the Constitution is amended).

6. For a method of recruiting staff in the public sector with absolutely invisible points other than their merit-based experience which is applicable for the position and to abolish individuals who gained positions through cronyism. The measure may also apply to the private sector in order for legal persons to enter beneficial European programs and to receive bank facilities.

7. To establish the Simple Analogue (without bonus) for both the parliamentary and local elections and the enshrinement of the measure as a constitutional article.

8. For the measure to include employees in the profits of large enterprises (over 200 employees) up to 40% of their total, particularly in automated industries.

9. For the pluralistic operation of all SMEs (televisions, radios, newspapers) and the imposition of strict sanctions in the case of organized propaganda.

10. For the approval by the Parliament of all loans, bonds, government securities issued and the referral to the Prime Minister's Justice, which exceeds the deficit rate set by the European Union in the management of finances.

11. The annulment of the Prespa Agreement and holding of a referendum in Greece as it should have been.

12. We also call for the trial of those who have defrauded the system from a state to a local level, ranging from political actions that led to crisis, to fake public sector employment, fake private contracts and the abolishment of employment through private sector contracts done through public sector workers right before elections.

So you could say that they're centrist in more than just name, and they don't seem to be all that enthusiastic about a Greater Hellas at the moment.

[Shrillland]

Greek Solution sound decent, would like a few pro-Russian voices in Europe.

The last thing Greece needs is another divide and conquer party fouling up European unity.

[World Anarchic Union]

Greek Solution sound decent, would like a few pro-Russian voices in Europe.

Greek Solution, apart from the obvious “being far right” bit, is led by a telemarketer who claimed that he was selling genuine letters of Jesus Christ. So, I wouldn’t jump on his bandwagon.
Greek Solution is just a more mainstream and less neonazi and murder-y option for some of Golden Dawn’s voters, especially the more elderly, where GD didn’t do as well this time around. It follows in the tradition of other such far right parties, very church-focused, often Russophilic, with reactionary values, that come and go, really.

[World Anarchic Union]

Can someone explain to me how Irridentism, Liberal Democracy, and Economic Liberalism are supposed to work out for Greece? I take it that Union of Centrists are centrists in name only, right?

The Union of Centrists is less of an actual political party and more of a personal vehicle for its leader, Leventis, who was very keen to enter the Parliament for decades, jumping from party to party (and throwing out curses for politicians to get cancer in the 90s, but that’s a different story). In a sense, they were voted as a protest party of sorts back in 2015, a more or less non-serious vote that wanted to signal the growing disillusionment with the former big parties, ND and PASOK, and Syriza. Regarding their platform, they are economically liberal with an emphasis on national issues and socially conservative (so what Leventis is politically). I don’t know how they are irredentist, personally.
But they lost votes this time around and judging from polls, they won’t be able to enter Parliament again.

[Chan Island]

I wonder why Tsipras called this election he surely knows he'll lose. Suppose there's honour in going out on your own terms.

I can answer this, how I see it at least. Tsipras and Syriza didn’t expect to lose by that great of a percentage. They can’t turn that around in just four months, which was how much time they had. So, they decided to, instead, go for elections now, to avoid perhaps a widening of the margin come September and to be seen as different from New Democracy and generally “the old”, which at a similar turn of events in 2014, had declined to call for elections. Basically, since these elections were seen and promoted both by ND and Syriza as a testament to how much trust there is to the current government, and since Tsipras had promised that he would call for elections if the difference was too great, he decided to go that way and be seen, or try to be seen at least, as someone who stays true to his word and isn’t a hypocrite, and Syriza similarly a party of values.

That makes sense.

Thanks for the context! Really helps out!

[Baltenstein]

I won't be in Greece during that time period, so I won't vote, but if I were to vote, I'd vote for Mitsotakis. New Democracy is an awful, nepotistic and corrupt party with a considerable dose of racism and homophobia, and it is of course still the party that was chiefly responsible for Greece's exploding pile of debt and subsequent bankruptcy, but the leader himself has so far somewhat managed to at least produce the image of a semi-competent manager type. Greece's overall economic situation is sliiightly and slowly improving, so here is hope that he'll manage to at least not screw up that.

Syriza is still responsible for the catastrophic course of the "memorandum negotations" of the first half of 2015 where Greece's jump into the unknown was only averted last-second by Tsipras throwing away all of his election promises and becoming the EU's loyal austerity enforcer. Since then the Syriza government has improved from "nation-destroyingly bad" to simply "recognizably awful" with the same nepotism, incompetence at governance, and love for bureaucratic statsism and cozy corruption ties with big money oligarchs that we've come to know and love from the two big traditional parties PASOK and ND. And Tsipras is such an uneducated, provicial-minded moron it really hurts at time. Pretty much the only thing he has shown any personal talent at so far is neutralizing and discarding his political allies once they're no longer useful to him (Alavanos/Kouvelis/Lafazanis/Z. Konstantopoulou/Varoufakis/Kammenos etc etc that guy is a serial killer).

The other parties (ANEL, Greek Solution, Centrist Union) are, for the most part, pretty much as World Anarchic Union described them: vehicles for the attention-seeking of their leaders. The Communist Party of Greece is still an artifact that belongs in a museum, with rhetoric that is unironically identical to the manifesto of a 1930ies Communist Party (complete with Stalin worship), Golden Dawn is still a criminal Nazi street gang, KINAL are basically the left-overs of those former PASOKites who weren't smart enough to jump ship and join Syriza when they absorbed the majority of the collapsing former government party's members.
The one party whose demise I view as unfortunate is The River, having been the only party with a believable centrist/liberal platform in Greece, but their downfall too has been largely self-inflicted.

[Baltenstein]

Greek Solution sound decent, would like a few pro-Russian voices in Europe.

The last thing Greece needs is another divide and conquer party fouling up European unity.

A pro-Russian stance will, for different reasons, always be popular in the Far Left and Far Right of the Greek political spectrum. Of course, as has been showcased by Syriza and ANEL, said Russophilia instantly evaporates into meaninglessness once one of those parties enters govenment and has to deal with the actual reality of international relations in regards to Greece's position and national interests, so there's that.

[World Anarchic Union]

I won't be in Greece during that time period, so I won't vote, but if I were to vote, I'd vote for Mitsotakis. New Democracy is an awful, nepotistic and corrupt party with a considerable dose of racism and homophobia, and it is of course still the party that was chiefly responsible for Greece's exploding pile of debt and subsequent bankruptcy, but the leader himself has so far somewhat managed to at least produce the image of a semi-competent manager type. Greece's overall economic situation is sliiightly and slowly improving, so here is hope that he'll manage to at least not screw up that.

Syriza is still responsible for the catastrophic course of the "memorandum negotations" of the first half of 2015 where Greece's jump into the unknown was only averted last-second by Tsipras throwing away all of his election promises and becoming the EU's loyal austerity enforcer. Since then the Syriza government has improved from "nation-destroyingly bad" to simply "recognizably awful" with the same nepotism, incompetence at governance, and love for bureaucratic statsism and cozy corruption ties with big money oligarchs that we've come to know and love from the two big traditional parties PASOK and ND. And Tsipras is such an uneducated, provicial-minded moron it really hurts at time. Pretty much the only thing he has shown any personal talent at so far is neutralizing and discarding his political allies once they're no longer useful to him (Alavanos/Kouvelis/Lafazanis/Z. Konstantopoulou/Varoufakis/Kammenos etc etc that guy is a serial killer).

The other parties (ANEL, Greek Solution, Centrist Union) are, for the most part, pretty much as World Anarchic Union described them: vehicles for the attention-seeking of their leaders. The Communist Party of Greece is still an artifact that belongs in a museum, with rhetoric that is unironically identical to the manifesto of a 1930ies Communist Party (complete with Stalin worship), Golden Dawn is still a criminal Nazi street gang, KINAL are basically the left-overs of those former PASOKites who weren't smart enough to jump ship and join Syriza when they absorbed the majority of the collapsing former government party's members.
The one party whose demise I view as unfortunate is The River, having been the only party with a believable centrist/liberal platform in Greece, but their downfall too has been largely self-inflicted.

I have to say I am surprised at what you say in the first paragraph. I agree completely that ND is a corrupt and nepotistic party, don’t get me wrong, but even if I look at Mitsotakis in a more neutral light, I still see him, despite being groomed by his father for a political career since his youth, as someone very incompetent, who seems to have attracted around him quite some members of the far right. I don’t believe he will be able to control them, the opposite. And he is the most obvious example of the nepotism you mentioned. I truly believe that if he had been born in a different surname, he wouldn’t have had a political career, and certainly not on that scale.
With him soon as the new PM and his nephew mayor of Athens, family politics have taken an even stronger hold over our politics, and the Mitsotakis dynasty has been emboldened. And I find that’s a sign that things haven’t really changed, in the end.

[World Anarchic Union]

The last thing Greece needs is another divide and conquer party fouling up European unity.

A pro-Russian stance will, for different reasons, always be popular in the Far Left and Far Right of the Greek political spectrum. Of course, as has been showcased by Syriza and ANEL, said Russophilia instantly evaporates into meaninglessness once one of those parties enters govenment and has to deal with the actual reality of international relations in regards to Greece's position and national interests, so there's that.

It’s very ironic and funny how Tsipras went from “Americans Out!” to buying even more jets from them and cozying up first to Obama and then to Trump.

[Baltenstein]

I have to say I am surprised at what you say in the first paragraph. I agree completely that ND is a corrupt and nepotistic party, don’t get me wrong, but even if I look at Mitsotakis in a more neutral light, I still see him, despite being groomed by his father for a political career since his youth, as someone very incompetent, who seems to have attracted around him quite some members of the far right. I don’t believe he will be able to control them, the opposite. And he is the most obvious example of the nepotism you mentioned. I truly believe that if he had been born in a different surname, he wouldn’t have had a political career, and certainly not on that scale.
With him soon as the new PM and his nephew mayor of Athens, family politics have taken an even stronger hold over our politics, and the Mitsotakis dynasty has been emboldened. And I find that’s a sign that things haven’t really changed, in the end.

Mitsotakis being a feeble leader who will be controlled by the likes of Voridis and Adonis is unfortunately not an unlikely prospect. Let's say I'm, um, reluctantly optimistic?

It’s very ironic and funny how Tsipras went from “Americans Out!” to buying even more jets from them and cozying up first to Obama and then to Trump.

He learned that one from Master Andreas.

[Risottia]

I wonder why Tsipras called this election he surely knows he'll lose.

He doesn't want to carry all the blame for the socioeconomic beating Greece had to endure to stay alive after decades of happy corruption from PASOK and ND governments, I guess. His strategy looks like "give ND this round, and at the next elections they will crash so hard they'll never recover again".

[Nakena]

Syriza is still responsible for the catastrophic course of the "memorandum negotations" of the first half of 2015 where Greece's jump into the unknown was only averted last-second by Tsipras throwing away all of his election promises and becoming the EU's loyal austerity enforcer.

From what I recall there weren't much of negotations there but more an dictate by Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

[World Anarchic Union]

I have to say I am surprised at what you say in the first paragraph. I agree completely that ND is a corrupt and nepotistic party, don’t get me wrong, but even if I look at Mitsotakis in a more neutral light, I still see him, despite being groomed by his father for a political career since his youth, as someone very incompetent, who seems to have attracted around him quite some members of the far right. I don’t believe he will be able to control them, the opposite. And he is the most obvious example of the nepotism you mentioned. I truly believe that if he had been born in a different surname, he wouldn’t have had a political career, and certainly not on that scale.
With him soon as the new PM and his nephew mayor of Athens, family politics have taken an even stronger hold over our politics, and the Mitsotakis dynasty has been emboldened. And I find that’s a sign that things haven’t really changed, in the end.

Mitsotakis being a feeble leader who will be controlled by the likes of Voridis and Adonis is unfortunately not an unlikely prospect. Let's say I'm, um, reluctantly optimistic?

It’s very ironic and funny how Tsipras went from “Americans Out!” to buying even more jets from them and cozying up first to Obama and then to Trump.

He learned that one from Master Andreas.

Mitsotakis is for sure the next PM, so I guess we will all see how he will rule. I mean, I know I will heavily dislike him, ideologically, socially, politically etc we are at opposite ends, point is how ND, its voters and the more undecided people will see him.

As for the second, Tsipras did take that page straight out of Andreas’ playbook, I completely agree. On the other hand, it was the only page he took, he certainly missed the one about remaining popular after being elected or being remembered fondly, no matter how much he tried to imitate the (Green) Sun-God himself

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Greek Solution sound decent, would like a few pro-Russian voices in Europe.

Greek Solution, apart from the obvious “being far right” bit, is led by a telemarketer who claimed that he was selling genuine letters of Jesus Christ. So, I wouldn’t jump on his bandwagon.
Greek Solution is just a more mainstream and less neonazi and murder-y option for some of Golden Dawn’s voters, especially the more elderly, where GD didn’t do as well this time around. It follows in the tradition of other such far right parties, very church-focused, often Russophilic, with reactionary values, that come and go, really.

A jesus Christ telemarketer? Sounds incredible, yes please, that could be fun.

[Asherahan]

Day25 with Varoufakis because the EU can go fuck itself.

[Asherahan]

Add MeRA25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeRA25

[Shrillland]

Add MeRA25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeRA25

If they start showing in the polls, certainly. Adding new parties to a poll isn't something done lightly because it wipes out everyone's votes.

And saying the EU can go fuck itself kind of runs against the Eurofederalist grain that MeRA25 seems to be behind...