The Three Greek Election Scenarios: Lose, Lose, Lose

ATHENS – Greece’s critical June 17th elections have been framed as a euro vs. drachma dilemma, whether the country will stay in the Eurozone or be forced out and back to its ancient currency and into what most analysts said is almost certain catastrophe, with rescue loans shut off, followed by a run on the banks and supermarkets, followed by immediate shortages of food, fuel, medicine and other critical necessities.
But Greek voters are faced with three main scenarios, and all of which do not present a way out of the economic and political crisis that has beset Greece for more than two years under austerity measures demanded by international lenders in return for bailout loans. Greece is surviving on a first round of $152 billion in emergency loans from the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) Troika and is awaiting a second for $173 billion that has been held back until the election results. A first polling on May 6 resulted in a stalemate after anti-austerity parties won 68 percent of the vote but no party was able to form a government and coalition talks collapsed. Here’s what could happen, although trying to predict an election is like trying to predict which way a jury will vote:

1. MORE AUSTERITY – The pro-austerity parties, led by New Democracy which finishes first or second, form a coalition. That would include its otherwise bitter rival, the PASOK Socialists, and perhaps a third party among the seven expected to win enough votes to gain seats in Parliament. They would continue the pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions they signed and supported, but were trying to wriggle out of the closer the elections got and the more their backing slipped. Their win means more austerity, another $15 billion in cuts and more economic pain, unless they mean what they said after changing their mind and get the Troika to renegotiate the terms.
2. END OF AUSTERITY – The surging Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), under its 37-year-old inexperienced leader Alexis Tsipras, finishes first or second and is able to rally the other anti-austerity parties who are feuding among themselves over ideology, personality clashes and petty problems to set aside their differences to form a government. Tsipras had said his first act would be to cancel the memorandum with the Troika and make austerity “history,” but the Troika said that could lead to the money pipeline being shut off and leaving him unable to fulfill his campaign promises to restore salaries and pensions and cut taxes. The country would go bust, be pushed out of the Eurozone and back to the drachma and the Stone Age unless – and it is a big unless – that the Troika, as Tsipras said he believes, is bluffing and renegotiates the terms.
3. STALEMATE – Even though the winning party gets an automatic 50 seats in the 300-member Parliament under Greece’s curious non-representational voting system (the system also does not allow voters to directly select a candidate they like but only a party which in turn chooses who it wants to seat in Parliament) if no party can form a government on its own or get others to join in a unity government, and coalition talks collapse again, Greece would need a third election. That could finish off the already-slumping tourist sector which brings in nearly 23 percent of the country’s $315 billion Gross Domestic Product because visitors wary of political instability and the predicament of getting caught in a currency exchange are staying away in droves. Tsipras said the Troika will deal with him because a Greek default could bring down the Eurozone of the 17 countries using the euro. He noted that Spain just got a $126.4 billion bailout from the EU, without attached austerity conditions and asked, “Why can’t we?

The elections are essentially a Hobson’s Choice – no choice – for Greeks, unless a government is formed and the Troika gives Greece some breathing space and renegotiates the killer terms that have worsened a five-year-long recession, created 22.6 percent unemployment and led to the closing of 1,000 businesses a week. Some 9.9 million Greeks are eligible to vote, but so many have become disgusted with politics that the last election led to a record 35 percent no-shows.
Greeks who do go to the polls will have to decide whether to bring back the pro-austerity New Democracy Conservatives under Antonis Samaras, who has changed his mind several times over whether he supports or opposes the deal he signed, and the PASOK of new leader Evangelos Venizelos, the former finance minister who doubled income and property taxes and taxed the poor while letting the politicians, rich and tax evaders escape sacrifice. The two parties have taken turns ruling for 38 years and been blamed for packing public payrolls with hundreds of thousands of unnecessary workers in return for votes, an unlawful practice in most democracies, but which – like corruption and tax evasion – is woven into the fabric of the culture in Greece, practices which not only had been condoned, but encouraged. If they win, they will essentially get a mandate to return to what they were doing with impunity, critics have said.
Besides SYRIZA, the other main options, not counting fringe groups such as the Drasi party of former Finance Minister Stefanos Manos who are on the cusp of gaining the 3 percent threshold needed to enter Parliament are:

• The Independent Greeks, a group of New Democracy outcasts led by Panos Kammenos, who finished fourth in May behind PASOK
• The fifth-place KKE Communists of Aleka Papariga, who was offered the chance by Tsipras to be Prime Minister if she joined a coalition but refused because she said she wants only to oppose and not to rule
• The Nazi-worshipping, Holocaust-denying, immigrant-bashing and violence-prone super-nationalist Golden Dawn party that finished sixth with nearly 7 percent of the vote but has been slipping after scenes of its party spokesman attacking rivals on a live television show before going into hiding and then reappearing to sue them, without being arrested himself
• The Democratic Left led by Fotis Kouvelis, who turned down a chance to join New Democracy and PASOK in a coalition after the May 6 elections because he said he did not want to be branded a traitor.

With Samaras, Venizelos and Tsipras agreeing that Greece cannot afford another deadlock and that a government must be formed, political leaders have been making motions that they would swallow their pride and bitterness and find some way to come together for the sake of Greece. Kammenos will not deal with Samaras because the New Democracy leader kicked him out of the party for refusing to support austerity after Samaras told his members previously to oppose it. But Kammenos has said he is open to dealing with other parties to form a coalition – which would give him the chance to be a minster and make key appointments.
The real lynchpin could be Kouvelis who, if other party leaders balk at joining New Democracy or SYRIZA, could join with them to give Greece a mostly Leftist, anti-austerity leaning party that could, with the Conservatives, give Greece a quasi-united front to deal with the Troika and try to change the terms of the bailouts that are the nexus of the problem and were supposed to be the solution. That’s the last choice, and maybe the last chance.