Greece election: Radical Syriza party heading for big win
Anti-austerity left-wing party Syriza is heading for a substantial victory in Greece’s general election, official projections say.The party is projected to win about 150 seats, just one short of an absolute majority, though officials say that number could change.
The ruling New Democracy party is projected to come a distant second.
Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras has pledged to renegotiate Greece’s debt arrangement with international creditors.
He has also vowed to reverse many of the austerity measures adopted by Greece since a series of bailouts began in 2010.
The result is being closely watched outside Greece, where it is believed a Syriza victory could encourage radical leftist parties across Europe.
Earlier, exit polls indicated that Syriza took between 36% and 38% of the total vote, with the ruling New Democracy party a distant second with 26%-28%.
What Syriza reminds us is that people won’t forget that they are consumers and remember they are citizens until the economic model of the neoliberals is so broken that the false promise of trickle down starts to defy gravity and become trickle up.
NZs economy, based on rebuilding Christchurch, cheap immigration, dairy and property speculation has lasted as long as it can. We will see real left wing politics emerge if the economy tanks and Labour continue to chase the beige and bored muddle classes.
Je Suis Syriza
This is precisely what I mean when I reminded Jamie Whyte that, while he’s well educated, he’s far from intelligent . And that applies to most Neo Liberal Kiwis living high on the fiscally dysfunctional hog .
An intelligent 1 % er would make sure that, while he/she is raping and pillaging, he/she’s making sure the hoi polloi are comfortable and secure at the very least . Otherwise , they will awaken from their hardships and create a fuss as a result of that dumb greed . Then, of course, fat , rich heads will roll as a consequence . Greedy, pig farmer douglas couldn’t have foreseen that because he’s a fucking moron, poor lamb .
In the immortal words of John Wayne . ” Life’s though . But it’s thougher if you’re stupid . “
Hooray, You hit this right on Martyn,
“NZs economy, based on rebuilding Christchurch, cheap immigration, dairy and property speculation has lasted as long as it can. We will see real left wing politics emerge if the economy tanks and Labour continue to chase the beige and bored muddle classes.”
Je Suis Syriza
Greece was the birth of our civilisation.
We must remember history here, as Greeks have shown we kiwis were so gullible with Planet Key and his soft policy of austerity while his diversion and robbing all the assets.
The Greeks are a smarter civilisation entirely to us in comparison.
Great day for Greece and democracy. “Rise Spartans” as you did against the Turks.
e
Now, all they have to do is ditch the Euro, so they get back some control over their country
I hope it goes this well for Spain at the end of the year.
The Taiwan result was positive in December too. Even the Communists gained a little in Japan despite Abe’s landslide.
Hah, just checked the Herald website: “Eurozone braced for ‘catastrophe’.”
Cross posting world events from the Daily Mail. Let’s see how much further the Herald will fall.
It’s not the election outcome as much as the way the ‘despised’ Greek citizens have created community and worked to provide services that are otherwise unaffordable by them.
I’m sure we could do the same – and remind those sitting on the ladders they’ve pulled up behind them that rules aren’t often the same as ‘common sense’.
One tangent worth developing is that around catch-up education and effective apprenticeships in more than the traditional trades.
Could we emulate the Greeks and create our own model outside the fabulously expensive tertiary education system? Or are the ‘grey and obediant working classes’ happily following the beige middle into cozy lethargy and helplessness?
1000% +++++++
Why are we still following behind a completely failed economic model at all?
Because those on the ladder ordered this not us so we need to rebel against a failed system as Greece has.
@Cleangreen – Absolutely. You got it.
It’s up to us 99% ordinary Kiwi folk to drive the force towards initiating change.
Greece has done it and so can we. It’s just a case of getting more Kiwis to wake up and see the light! Using alternative news blog sites, such as TDB, to publicize the message, is a good start.
I hope the je suis fad dies soon
Greece’s situation is a very difficult one, but yes, the continued austerity and budget cuts need reviewing, and while most European capitals, where the governments sit, like in London, Berlin, Paris, also some others, will be extremely worried now, Greeks may have a bit of hope for a return to bearable living again.
This will be extremely interesting to follow, what government majority will be formed, and how they will renegotiate with the EU, or rather the Eurozone leaders and finance ministers, about continued “help” to get out of the doldrums.
The win by the left in Greece will only bring temporary joy to the people, as Greece alone cannot change the systems there are. There is a need for international cooperation amongst alternative, progressive forces, as the global systems need to be changed.
As long as that does not happen, we will have capital flight out of countries wanting change, and other forces pulling the familiar strings behind the scenes.
A new “international” force is needed, and perhaps in Europe they may try a beginning.
But there are many dark forces at work there now, and the UKIP and others in the UK will rejoice, as this is to them the start of the end of the Eurozone, and the EU. Same will apply to the Front Nationale in France, and some other groups waiting for a return to nationalism.
I think there will indeed very major changes in Europe, not necessarily all for the better. A core group of nations may stay together, but expect the UK to split, expect others to demand different solutions and treatment, and the breakup is then underway.
With China also slowing economically, in their growth, the world can be in for a serious recession, and NZ will finally feel the pain also, not just the poor here.
That may precede the overdue change here to throw out the self serving NatACT brigades in government, as people will see their houses losing values, perhaps deflation setting in, not being able to keep up with debt payments, and a major crisis ahead, with massive job losses.
Maybe such pain is needed, to teach people that collective efforts and working together alongside each other is the only way forward for the longer term.
It is not in the ACTNats interest to working together with others, as they want to assume a hassle free mantle to force their soft on the surface austerity all the way till we are like Greece or worse.
@Mike in Auckland – hear hear, particularly your final paragraph!
I have always believed strength can only come from the mass collective of the people, to progress forward.
Greece is only the start of citizens beginning to take control of their nation again.
This is going to be the case here too, as ordinary Kiwis begin to wake up from the darkness and pain of austerity measures, which has failed working class and state dependent Kiwis, while allowing a minority 1% to prosper.
The other 99% of us will be the driving force behind a left wing party (possibly NZ Greens) to lead NZ towards a positive change, giving balance to a whole new fairer economic and social structure.
May that day arrive soon.
It’s not just Greece rebelling, Spain has a rise in left wing support…wanting more accountability to political elite….extract
Podemos is founded on the politics of hope: its English translation is “we can”. It was founded only this year but won 1.2m votes and five seats in May’s European elections. And now it has topped opinion polls, eclipsing the governing rightwing People’s party and the ostensibly centre-left PSOE – the Spanish Socialist Workers’ party. There are few precedents for such an explosive political ascent in modern western Europe; in Spain, a discredited political elite appears to be tottering.
Not that Podemos simply materialised out of nowhere. In the buildup to Spain’s 2011 general election, hundreds of thousands of indignados took to the streets in protest at the political elite. Yet without political leadership and direction, such movements – although they can mobilise the disengaged – invariably fizzle out. As Iñigo Errejón, the Podemos election supremo, has written, before May’s European elections, “social mobilisation had been in retreat. Among large sections of the left the most pessimistic assumptions prevailed.” But Podemos was the child of the indignados movement, a party that emphasises bottom-up democratic participation: where the indignados had neighbourhood assemblies, Podemos has “circles” that take similar forms. There are even circles among Britain’s Spanish diaspora in London and Manchester. The funding for its European campaign was largely crowdsourced, and its policies and priorities are decided partly through online voting.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/16/podemos-left-crisis-ukip-anti-immigrant
Viva Podemos: the left shows it can adapt and thrive in a crisis
The explosive ascent of Podemos in Spain proves there is nothing inevitable about Ukip-style anti-immigrant politics
The EU might well have been originally intended to create a stronger Europe through economic (and to a lesser extent political) union, but it seems to have evolved into a more dangerous animal: economic imperialism. This is not unlike the imperial wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, except that the fighting is done by men in suits with computers rather than men with guns.
If you believe that neo liberal constructs, i.e the I.M.F & the W.T.O whom have under written the loans made to Greece, serve the interests of the people in any form of collective sense, then what commenters say in the m.s.m may hold some water.
However if you do not and have followed the workings of these international financial institutions/dictators, pulling 000s out of their shiny bottomed suit pants and then loaning those same 000s at exorbitant interest rates then it’s panic stations for Greece, however if you believe in the notion of the right of the people to control their own destiny then it’s a major victory for the 99% in Greece.
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