http://socialistaction.org/syriza-wins-greek-workers-lose/
Syriza wins, Greek workers lose
Published October 2, 2015. | By Socialist Action.
Oct. 2015 Tsipras
By MARTY GOODMAN
The Sept. 20 Greek national election, held in a rush, resulted in the
reelection of the Syriza party’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The
election occurred merely 30 days after its announcement. It was timed
cynically to take place before the onset of a new wave of punishing
austerity conditions—the worst ever—agreed to by Syriza and imposed by
European Union (EU) financial institutions and the International
Monetary Fund.
Defying the pollsters, Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left)
nevertheless received 35.47% of the vote, easily beating its neoliberal
rivals and only slightly down from the Jan. 25 election that brought it
to power. Syriza’s nearest competitor, the New Democracy Party, received
28.3% of the vote.
Voter turnout was a mere 56%, down 800,000 voters from January, the
lowest percentage since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974.
The small turnout reflected disgust with capitalist politicians, “left”
or right, who promise relief but deliver more misery. In contrast, 70%
voted in the July referendum before Syriza’s sellout to the EU and the
banks.
Syriza won 145 seats, down from 149, a minority in the 300-seat
parliament. Syriza once again sought a coalition partner in the
right-wing Independent Greeks (ANEL), which has opposed the austerity
agreement. ANEL won a total of 10 seats, down from 13. In September,
Dimitris Kammenos, ANEL’s Deputy Minister for Infrastructure, tweeted
anti-Semitic remarks and resigned hours after the new cabinet was sworn in.
The capitalist media reacted to the Syriza victory with delight. Syriza
is a capitalist government, not a worker’s government. Said the New
York-based Ferro, which manages about $1 billion in assets, “The Greek
election result is the best one from a market point of view.” Indeed, a
leader who will mislead and betray working people after echoing their
demands is often a much better option for the capitalist class than a
despised reactionary politician.
Syriza first came to power based on its promise to demand “not one
sacrifice for the euro,” the currency of 17 countries in the European
Union. Called “the memorandum,” the agreement is for an EU loan of 86
billion euros (U.S. $96 billion) with brutal “free market” anti-worker
conditions attached.
Unemployment in Greece stands at 26%; 60% for youth. A medical study
found that 54% of Greeks are undernourished. Public services are
devastated; 50% of children live in poverty. National debt is 180% of
the Gross National Product.
The memorandum was rejected by 62% in a July 5 voter referendum. Then,
in an astonishingly rapid betrayal (but not the first!), the memorandum
was nevertheless accepted withn 72 hours of the vote by the
pseudo-radical Syriza government.
Incredibly, the deal accepted by Syriza cost 4 billion euros more than
the version rejected July 5 by the Greek people. The memorandum wielded
additional cuts to pensions, including special aid to the poorest; a
hike in taxes on food and other goods and services; a “liberalizing” of
the labor market (that is, voiding labor protections and job security);
and the privatization of 50 billion euros worth of public institutions.
Clearly, the EU rulers sought to punish Greek working people for daring
to vote against austerity (attacks on workers) by voting Syriza in
January and voting “no” in July. Indeed, Greece has become a testing
ground for capitalists everywhere, including the U.S., probing how far a
working class can be bullied into poverty in the age of capitalist crisis.
Defections from Syriza
Some 40 members of Syriza’s “dissident” parliament members, known as the
Left Platform, voted “no” in a final memorandum vote in late August,
prompting Tsipras to call for the September election. The former
boosters of Syriza in the Left Platform quickly found themselves purged
from government and formed an anti-memorandum party called Popular
Unity. Eight out of the 11 Left Platform leaders resigned from Syriza.
According to Syriza officials cited in a Financial Times article: “In
the aftermath [of the memorandum] at least one third of Syriza’s
membership defected to other parties, including those to its left, with
others leaving political campaigning altogether.”
On Sept. 1, the majority of the Syriza youth group leadership signed a
statement of resignation. An organization of up to 2500 members, it was
a force in Greece’s important student movement. The youth group cited
Syriza’s political “bankruptcy” in accepting the memorandum as a major
reason for its split. It also cited “the depreciation of internal
democracy and collective decisions of the party by the government’s
leadership.”
Indeed, calls for a Syriza party conference before the final vote on the
memorandum and the election were rebuffed by the Tsipras leadership.
Popular Unity did not receive a seat in parliament, falling just short
of the 3% threshold with only 2.9% of the vote. “We lost the battle, but
not the war,” said PU leader Panagiotis Lafanazis, the former Syriza
energy minister. The PU promoted a “Grexit” (Greek exit from the EU) in
a capitalist, not socialist, Greece.
Other memorandum opponents in the election included the Greek Communist
Party (KKE), a sectarian Stalinist party, which increased its vote only
slightly to 5.5% and retained its 15 seats in parliament. Despite the
crisis, the KKE has rejected any form of unity with other forces,
including telling its members not to participate in the memorandum
referendum. It’s well known, however, that most KKE members voted “no”
anyway.
The anti-capitalist coalition known as “ANTARSYA” increased its vote
marginally from .64% to .85%. ANTARSYA suffered a split by two Maoist
formations, ARAN and ARAS, which joined PU. ANTARSYA was extremely
active in the “OXI” (no) memorandum vote campaign and anti-fascist
mobilizations. Socialist action’s sister party in the Fourth
International, OKDE-Spartakos, is in ANTARSYA.
The violent Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn (GD) party, whose hard-core
members are from the police and army, has gained support by posing as
the most uncompromising opponent of the memorandum. GD received 6.99% of
the vote, allowing these racist thugs to increase their seats in
parliament from 17 to 18. The GD vote has risen on the Greek islands
that have seen an influx of immigrants.
According to Alternate Shipping Minister Christos Zois, about 230,000
undocumented immigrants, mostly from Syria, have arrived in Greece over
the previous eight months. Many come to Greece as a stopping-off point
in their migration to Germany and other European countries. Molotov
cocktails were thrown at refugees on the Greek islands of Lesbos and
Kos. Amnesty International witnessed “thugs” with bats attacking them in
Kos. Moreover, human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Greek
police for heavy-handed tactics against the refugees.
GD says that all “illegal immigrants” should be rounded up and deported.
A united mobilization of the entire working class is needed to smash
fascism.
The dead-end Syriza strategy
Syriza’s strategy, hailed by many on the international left as the wave
of the future, is based on the lowest common denominator of divergent
radical forces. Syriza stressed the electoral road to socialism (when
socialism was even mentioned!), not popular mobilization. Its base is
considered small within the union movement.
Syriza is led by the former “Eurocommunist” wing of the Greek Communist
Party. Eurocommunism was a trend within the Stalinist parties of Europe,
beginning in the 1970s, which tended to seek reforms under capitalism
while abandoning the Marxist perspective of proletarian revolution.
Tsipras himself and PU leader Lafanazis were Eurocommunists. Syriza also
includes various Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists, and others. They all
promised radical change and party democracy. They got neither.
A fighting working class—alongside allies such as students, women, LGBT
people, and immigrants—is the only class capable of leading the fight
for socialism. Socialists say, “Cancel the debt! For a workers
government in Greece!”
Photo: Syria leader Alexis Tsipras celebrates recent election victory.
Ari Messinisaris / AFP / Getty Images
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Posted in Economy, Europe, International. | Tagged EU, Greece, Syriza,
Tsipras.
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