The Volatile State of Greek Politics

2014

The political landscape in Greece is confused and volatile at the moment; the right and extreme- right-wing parties are accorded a disproportionately large place in political debate, while the radical left-wing SYRIZA party is attempting to maintain a ‘leftist’ profile and demonstrate its capacity to govern through a strategy of image normalisation. These tensions make it very difficult for the Greek government to stick to the EU’s tough reform agenda. The governing coalition is trying to conceal the social effects of implementing structural policy reforms, even postponing some measures to avoid bearing their political cost. At the same time, it is adopting a very rushed, and thus quite worrying, attitude towards a fast-track growth agenda, without taking into consideration the conditions for sustainable economic development.

The citizens of Hellas voted on the 17 th of June for the second time. The first round of national elections on the 6 th of May revealed a fragmented party scene and a reluctance to form a coalition government. One might think that the Greek politicians behaved irrationally then by risking to leave the country headless in the middle of the crisis. However, quite the opposite is true. The party leaders weighed primarily their short-term gains and losses from consenting to a coalition government. Neither PASOK (until recently a major force) nor DIMAR (a breakaway fraction of SYRIZA) wanted to form a government with the conservative Nea Dimokratia (ND) without the participation of the main winner of the elections, SYRIZA. Both of them argued that a parliamentary majority would not guarantee much and a government without SYRIZA would be short-lived. Their estimation was not wrong, and it applies as much then as it does now. What they forgot to say publicly, though, is that if PASOK and DIMAR agreed to a government intending to continue the austerity programme while SYRIZA continued to play Mr. Niceguy, their parties would probably vanish in the next elections whereas SYRIZA would triumph.

SSRN Electronic Journal

The recent elections in Greece reflects an enormous change in the political behavior of the electorate. The citizens have not chosen a simple switch on the power, but contributed with their votes to a strategic defeat of populism and in same time they paved the way for the search of a new type of leadership, which is close to realism in handling with social problems that can't be implemented with calculated financial costs. The vote of 7 th Juli is a vote against the over-promising and underdelivery experienced under Syriza's rule. The voting for conservative ND is not an ideological choice. It's a choice that runs counter to the logic of falsely or hypocritical negotiating austerity measures opposed to Greece buy his Lenders (memorandum) and the consequent tax-tornado as a result of negotiating failure with the partners in the EEC and the IMF. The positive vote for ND also reflects the contradiction with the misguided manipulations of public opinion regarding the Skopje-Question and finally the strategy of micro concessions and micro-allowances as a means of concluding a "political-social alliance" with an undefined hostile establishment.

2015

The new Greek government, led by the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), won power on 25 January. Theofanis Exadaktylos assesses the government’s first month in office. He notes that while Syriza won the election with a commitment to renegotiate the country’s bailout agreement, the subsequent negotiations have proven even more challenging than might have been expected, not least due to internal opposition within the party itself.

European Journal of Political Research, 2018

The Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and the Independent Hellenes (ANEL)governed with a slight majority in parliament (153 of 300 seats in January 2017). The coalition government ultimately closed the second review of the August 2015 Greek bailout programme, but relations with the country’s lenders remained strained and the third review had only informally closed by the end of the year. The main dispute between the governing coalition and the opposition was about whether Greece would be able to secure a ‘clean’ bailout exit in August 2018 – when the current bailout programme ends – and return to the bond markets. Most polls suggested a stable lead of the main opposition party, NewDemocracy (ND), over SYRIZA, and a relative revival of the ‘Center Left’. The refugee crisis no longer made headlines, but problems persisted. There were some positive signs in the economy, including a decrease in unemployment to 21 per cent and record-breaking tourist arrivals; full-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2017 came to 1.4 per cent.Investment, however, dropped to 11 per cent of GDP from 26 per cent of GDP in 2007.

2018

This chapter discusses the impact of austerity policies on Greek politics and attempts to identify patterns of continuity and change in the post-1974 era. The first part maps the evolution of politics in Greece, with a focus on the development of the clientelistic state, which shaped state policies largely based on political cost. The second part discusses the changes occurring post-2010, including the decline of the socialist PASOK in favour of the rise of fringe populist parties. It is argued that the political and social turmoil created by the austerity measures adopted have been conditioned by the already existing particular brand of populist and clientelistic governance, which stood at the core of the country’s party political system at least since the 1980s.

Continuing a tradition that started in 2012, a couple of weeks ago the Greek Politics Specialist Group (GPSG) invited short commentaries from its members, affiliates and the broader academic community, as a first 'rapid' reaction to the election results. The scale of the response was humbling and posed an editorial dilemma, namely whether the pamphlet should be limited to a small number of indicative perspectives, perhaps favouring more established voices, or whether it should capture the full range of viewpoints.

"...Even if each of us is an ‘unreliable narrator’ of events in Greece, a few key themes and threads emerge from this collection, which are worth noting: (i) the success of Syriza’s message of hope versus a less successful campaign by New Democracy focusing on the threat of instability (ii) the realignment but continuing volatility of the Greek party system with the confirmation of Syriza as a pillar of a new (quasi) two-party system, the collapse of PASOK, the fragmentation of the political centre and the shortening of the electoral cycle (iii) the logic behind the Syriza / Independent Greeks coalition and the tensions that may possibly arise from their ideological differences (iv) the increasingly imminent tension between Syriza’s radical agenda of ending austerity and the Troika’s stated positions (v) the continuing salience of populism, especially at the far right of the political spectrum (vi) the potential impact of Syriza’s victory on other political parties, actors and debates across the European Union and beyond."