WHILE GREEK prime minister George Papandreou looks likely to win tonight’s vote of confidence in his new cabinet, winning over the public’s support for more austerity is an even greater battle.
Whatever the outcome of the parliamentary poll – to be taken in an open, roll call vote of MPs, which reduces the chance of any dissidence on the Pasok backbenches – the public’s deep disillusionment with the political system in Greece is far from dissipating.
With unemployment growing rapidly – now over 16 per cent with predictions saying it will reach 20 per cent by the year’s end – for many the immediate concern is with holding on to their jobs and making ends meet on continuously less means.
Greeks are dejected and fearful, with most blaming the political system for the country’s predicament, and it’s a mood that has spread right into the centre of society.
This frustration of the average citizen is best gauged by the thousands of peaceful protesters, styling themselves the “Indignant”, who have held daily protests outside parliament since May 25th, attracting hundreds of thousands to successive Sunday evening demonstrations.
Leaderless, strictly non-party political and with no trade union links, the Indignant movement is a disparate group of elements and ages, without any clear political agenda but opposed to the way austerity has been administered to date, which its supporters say has targeted those least culpable for the country’s predicament and which is destroying its future.
The failure last week by the two parties that have dominated Greece since military rule ended in 1974, Pasok and conservative New Democracy, to form a coalition government – an idea dashed by petty political manoeuvrings – has only served to strengthen popular disillusionment in the political system.
While main opposition New Democracy now outperforms Pasok by a small margin in opinion polls, it has failed to capitalise on the anti-austerity momentum with its promise that it would seek a fundamental renegotiation of the bailout memorandum’s terms if it came to power. The conservative party’s European partners have made it clear this will not happen, leading many to condemn party leader Antonis Samaras for engaging in simple populism.
For broadsheet daily Kathimerini – a liberal, centre-right newspaper which traditionally has never leaned towards Pasok – the debate must move on from petty party squabbles, declaring that the Papandreou government “has no right to fail, because an entire country will default if it does”.
Neither has the far left expanded its base, with ratings for the Communist Party and Radical Left Coalition – which are firmly wedded to the idea of permanent opposition – remaining remarkably stable in the polls.
The selfishness of some parties is also evident in other sectors of society, which are continuing on well-trodden paths: yesterday, the powerful union representing workers in the state-run electricity supply company began a 48-hour rolling strike that has resulted in blackouts in many parts of the country.
This crisis at the political centre has lent legitimacy to all types of political alternatives.
According to a public opinion poll published on Sunday in the Pasok-leaning To Vima,almost half of the respondents (47.5 per cent) said they wanted parliament to reject the so-called second memorandum, as the swingeing mid-term austerity plan is popularly known. Only a third were in favour of the measures, while the remainder were of no opinion or declined to answer.
The €12 billion tranche – payment of which the euro group has now made conditional on Greek MPs’ ratification of the new austerity package – would enable Greece to continue repaying its debt over the summer, staving off a default.
The linking of the payout with a majority vote in parliament is seen by some as blackmail, especially as Greeks feel that the country’s European partners seem to be oblivious to the public anger at the socioeconomic cost of austerity.
Despite Mr Papandreou’s repeated warnings that the only alternative to the tranche is national bankruptcy or an exit from the euro, nothing near a comfortable majority of people on the streets seems to be listening or taking such doomsday scenarios seriously.
But are there any alternatives to austerity piled on austerity? According to Athens University economist Yanis Varoufakis, Greeks have long lost confidence that austerity can lead the country out of the crisis, and are now convinced it will plunge the country to the bottom.
“If you think of austerity, you think of making a sacrifice for a better future. But after one year of measures, Greeks see little future in more austerity,” said Mr Varoufakis, a former speechwriter for Mr Papandreou who has been an almost daily commentator on the unfolding crisis in the Greek media.
Indeed, the sense that the government has no tangible plan to help what remains of the economy to prosper, Varoufakis says, has led to Greeks to the point of embracing a wide range of desperate alternatives, such as exiting the euro, reneging on the debt or denying that Greece even has a debt or that the population are responsible for it.