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June 18, 2012
Greek voters failed to conclusively back a new government on May 6 to lead them out of a debt crisis that has seen the nation consider default on their debt repayments and shake the euro zone to the core.That failure, which resulted in days of painstaking negotiations as the nation’s main parties scrambled unsuccessfully to form a coalition government, set the stage for the Greeks return to the polls votes on Sunday.
Gary Sauer-Thompson, travel poster, Adelaide, 2012
The vote on Sunday is seen as referendum on Greece’s current bailout and its strict austerity measures.This election could prove just as inconclusive as the last; or more likely, a coalition will be reached following Sunday’s election because the situation in Greece is now more desperate than it was in May. It is more than likely that the right---ie., New Democracy--- will gain the most votes, forms a coalition, and Syriza becomes the opposition.
Meanwhile the social security system is collapsing, hospitals are suffering dire shortages, one in four workers is unemployed and the rest fear that their turn is coming. Women have been hit hard: not only have they been disproportionately affected by public sector cuts but are also still expected to do the lion's share of care work. People remain unpaid.
Its going to get tougher for Greece. It stays in the eurozone with a weak coalition government mandated to go along with a long and brutal process of austerity that reduces the cost base of a weak Greece. From Berlin's perspective Greece is a lost cause, but the sole reason for it not being abandoned is that it may make a bad situation a lot worse.
The harsh economic reality is that the drivers of the global economy have shifted to Asia (eg. India and China) and that Europe faces a decade of low growth. The 21st century is an Asian century.
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Syriza is a party that garnered a mere 4.6% of the vote in 2009 It gained 27% on Sunday. Syriza is now a very strong and powerful opposition. Resistance to further austerity measures is only going to grow.