GREECE MAKES A CHOICE

Greece has been rather out of the European public eye in recent weeks. After many a weary conference, the second bailout of €130bn was signed up on 21 February and the luckless private bond-holders later took a 70% haircut.  The uneasy coalition government of technocrat (i.e. bank stooge) Lucas Papadimos has fulfilled its mandate. The Athens street turmoil has calmed, anxiety has switched to the much more significant economies of Spain and Italy and the balm of billions of euros pumped into the eurozone by the ECB has given the crisis a temporary respite.

Stop-gap Papadimos was obliged to call elections and they are scheduled for 6 May. All the signs are that the old guard, those who have misruled Greece for a generation, will poll badly but no coherent alternative government is discernable. The existing PASOK/ New Democracy coalition had about 220 seats in the 300-seat parliament. Opinion polls suggest that those likely to vote (20% are undecided) will choose as follows:

Supporters of Bailout and Eurozone

Party                           Politics            Leader                   % vote        Seats
PASOK                           Left              Venizelos                     17.8        48
New Democracy             Right             Samaras                       22.3        110*
Democratic Coalition    Centre             Bakoyannis                    3.0           8
                                                                                             43.1        166
Opponents of Bailout but pro-Europe

Independent Greeks          Right           Kammenos                     9.9      26
Syriza                               Far Left      Chipras                           9.8      26
LAOS                               Far Right     Karatzoferis                   3.9        10
Democratic Left                 Left             Kouvelis                        8.6        23
Greens                               Left              A Committee               3.1        8
Various Independents            -                                                   6.2        0
                                                                                               41.5      93
Anti-European

KKE                               Communist    Papariga                       9.7        26
Golden Dawn                   Neo-Nazi       Michaloliakos                5.7        15
                                                                                              15.4       41

*Under the Greek system the highest polling party gets a bonus of 50 seats.

On the face of it, the existing PASOK/ New Democracy coalition should have a comfortable majority but Samaras has vowed not to renew his alliance with PASOK.  The support for both parties is inexorably melting away. As parties need to poll at least 3% to be represented, the pro-bailout Democratic Coalition may not make it, nor may the Greens or even LAOS. Some kind of coalition will eventually emerge but its complexion is uncertain and may well be influenced Left-wards by the French elections, especially if Sarkozy falls. The established parties are reaping the whirlwind of unpopularity as they implement austerity under EU/IMF instructions but there are local issues too, especially the immigration flood and crime-wave, with LAOS and Golden Dawn advocating wholesale forced repatriation.

Samaras (New Democracy) and Venizelos (PASOK)

In a sense all this election fever is the trivia of Lilliput as Greece is not master of its own house. After two huge bail-outs it is wholly dependent financially on subsidies from the Eurozone. Its fate will be decided in Brussels and Berlin. If Greece leaves the Eurozone (which surely it must), it can only do so under the auspices and direction of the European powers, unless revolution breaks out, which seems unlikely. There is a distant echo in Greece of the 19th century Capitulations which so oppressed the Ottoman Empire. The Capitulations granted Europeans legal and fiscal privileges in that country and although they were not very intrusive they naturally offended Ottoman ideas of national sovereignty. EU, normally German, officials dictating policy and staffing ministries in Greece are much resented and recent remarks by Poul Thomsen, IMF’s man in Athens, advocating speedier bank repossessions caused a particular furore. It took Kemal Ataturk’s revolution to rid Turkey of the Capitulations but Greece is currently an embryonic Capitulatory State.

There is certainly a respectable intellectual case for Greece to be taken under European tutelage. Greece’s own politicians have totally failed to manage the economy, after 5 years of steep recession, or implement the reductions in public spending and organise the privatisations required in the EU memoranda. The Greeks are charmingly eloquent and will formally pass the necessary legislation but action seldom follows as they lack political will and the civil service is incompetent, often staffed by useless placemen after years of clientism.

Three notable scandals, illustrating the dire state of public probity, have moved forward recently. The German entity Siemens, heavily involved in telecommunications equipment, traffic lights, the Athens Metro and the Greek Railways among others was discovered by the German courts to be running a slush fund paying large bribes (allegedly €100m) to Greek officials and politicians including the then Minister of Transport. To end civil action, Siemens has just agreed to pay €270m in compensation to the Greek state but criminal actions are still possible, if unlikely.

The good reputation of the Orthodox Church in Greece has been damaged by the long-running Vatopedi scandal. The abbot of Vatopedi, Brother Ephraim, heads the largest and richest monastery on Mount Athos (known as The Holy Mountain in Greek). Brother Ephraim was incarcerated at Christmas on charges of fraud and embezzlement but was released on bail at Easter, in part thanks to pressure from Vladimir Putin, suddenly wanting to ingratiate himself with Russian Orthodoxy.

Brother Ephraim of Vatopedi

 The scandal revolves around land-swaps between the New Democracy government of Costas Karamanlis and Vatopedi from 2008 said to have disadvantaged the Greek state to the tune of €100m. As usual this is a very murky “Byzantine” affair.

Much worse have been the revelations regarding the activities of a former senior PASOK politician, Akis Tsohadzopoulos. A former bus driver, Akis rose through the ranks of PASOK from 1981 to 2007, holding important portfolios including Transport, Defence and Development. He retired in 2007, was expelled from PASOK in 2011 and arrested and charged with money laundering in April 2012. A 104-page report on his activities from the prosecutor’s office has been leaked. Allegedly he took bribes from various sources, notably the German supplier of submarines to the Greek navy and the Russian supplier of missile systems, and bought about €35m worth of property  mostly now in the names of his wife and daughter, via a network of offshore companies. Tsohadzopoulos currently languishes in prison.

It is not surprising in the light of the above that the contempt the Greek people have felt for their political class has deepened. A totally new broom is called for to reform a system wholly rotten from corruption, though it is not clear whether it will be a European or Greek broom. In this context the question of who wins the coming election is somewhat superfluous. Dr Johnson, speaking of another contest between midgets, declared “There is no settling the point of precedency between a Louse and a Flea”.

Akis Tsohadzopoulos

SMD
20.04.12

Text copyright Sidney Donald 2012