Political Options in Greece the Day After

Parliamentary elections too place in Greece yesterday, Sunday, 6 May. The results reported this morning, with 98.74% of the vote counted, are:

Party	# Votes	# Seats	Share
New Democracy	1,189,350	108	18.88%
SYRIZA	1,048,046	53	16.77%
PASOK	824,769	41	13.18%
Independent Greeks	662,028	33	10.59%
Communist Party KKE	529,770	26	8.47%
Golden Dawn	435,708	21	6.97%
Democratic Left	381,257	19	6.10%
Others below 3%	1,189,155	0	19.00%
Total	6,260,083	301	100.00%

These elections are notable for the following results:

·    PASOK has been displaced from the first or second position for the first time since the late 1970s. SYRIZA, an anti-austerity left-wing party, has become the second-largest party in Greece. This occurs at a time when the Communist Party has remained at roughly historic voting levels. SYRIZA was a beneficiary of both the protest vote as well as the youth vote in Greece, who apparently voted in historic numbers yesterday.

·    The Independent Greeks, a nationalist/autarkist party set up by former New Democracy MP Panos Kammenos, profited significantly from the protest vote on the right wing. Together with Golden Dawn, an even more extreme version of the same political philosophy, these two parties have eliminated LAOS, the Popular Orthodox Party, from the Parliament.

·    Golden Dawn has variously been described as subscribing to the National Socialist (neo-Nazi), “far right” political philosophy. Its platform in these elections focussed on national pride (marches, party songs), a radical anti-immigrant platform featuring “Greece for the Greeks” and totalitarian government solutions to the crisis, including immediate bank nationalisation and oil drilling. Golden Dawn is also “anti-Memorandum”, i.e. against the austerity conditions imposed by the bailout. A side-by-side comparison of its political platform with those of Independent Greeks and LAOS shows an almost total similarity in stated policy objectives.

·    Fotis Kouvelis’ Political Left, a more moderate break-away party from SYRIZA, entered Parliament with a 6.10% of the vote. It is considered more moderate in that it expresses a greater desire to remain within the EU and the Eurozone, although its political platform is characterised by the same nebulous set of promises as that of SYRIZA.

All political parties campaigned against the “Memorandum”, to varying degrees. Yet the majority of current popular votes, for those parties that received above the 3% threshold to enter parliament, show a 60-40% anti-Memorandum popular vote. The Pro vote, which is of ND and PASOK, is given 149 seats in Parliament thanks to a 50-vote “bonus” which goes to the party with the largest share of popular votes.

Party	# Votes	# Seats	Share
Pro	2,014,119	149	39.72%
Anti	3,056,809	152	60.28%
Total	5,070,928	301	100.00%

If we include the additional 1.189 mln people who voted for parties that didn’t make it into Parliament, then the ratio of the popular vote against the Memorandum will be far higher.

The challenge was, and remains, governance. In order to govern, electoral coalitions are necessary. Antonis Samaras pressed the most fervently for this election. He is now charged with forming a government, which will probably include PASOK and one smaller party (most likely Democratic left, despite the latter’s anti-Memorandum stance). Such a government can only muster 168 of 300 votes in Parliament and will be extraordinarily fragile.

Coalition Options	# Seats
Option 1: ND + PASOK + Dem. Left	168
Option 2: ND + PASOK + Ind. Greeks	182
Option 3: SYRIZA + Ind. Gr + Dem. Left	105
Option 4: Option 3 + Communist Party	131
Option 5: Option 4 + PASOK	172

Should New Democracy not be able to form a government, the mandate goes to SYRIZA, which faces the same problem on the left. A grand coalition of SYRIZA, Independent Greeks and Democratic Left renders 109 parliamentary votes. Adding the Communist Party brings this up to 131 votes. These “resistance” parties (many of whom have already announced that they will not cooperate), would have to add PASOK, the arch-nemesis of the left, to bring the vote count to 172. The likelihood of such a constellation is impossible.

I give the greatest chances to a new government headed by Antonis Samaras under Options 1-2 of these options.

Such a government will encounter an impossible political task, pressed by the Troika for additional austerity and a privatisation programme on the one hand, and increasingly violent resistance by parties of the left on the other. It does so without the democratic legitimacy of a popular mandate, and without national unity. This means that issues such as university “reform” or privatisation will become even more vitriolic, marked by sit-ins and occupations, emboldened union resistance and the range of other “interventions” we have become accustomed to.

As a result, I give the next ND-led government a lifetime of two years at the maximum, and very probably less than that. Making it through 12 months will be nothing less than a miracle.

Greece’s political leaders, led by Antonis Samaras, were in favour of these elections. They have arguably reaped what they have sown. The Troika has warned clearly that continued receipt of bail-out instalments will depend on continuation of Memorandum policies. Although anti-Memorandum feelings run high, no party has managed to justify its policy platform in terms of a financial model which would enable an alternative to the conditionality of the Memorandum, short of outright default, reversion to a national currency which will bankrupt the country and its citizens, and total nationalisation of the banking system, oil refineries, hospitals and other economic assets.

All this occurs against the backdrop of “Round II” of the sovereign debt crisis, with Italy, Spain, France and the United States being dragged in within the next 8 months. Absent further quantitative easing by the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve, which carries its own manifest dangers, the situation is regrettably going to worsen by November – December 2012 at the latest.