Municipal and regional elections in Greece on November 7th 2010

What is the issue of the elections on November 7th ?

 

The workers’ and peoples’ resistance to the butchery of the Government, the E.U. and the I.M.F. cannot be expressed by a simple “anti-Memorandum” vote.

It is now more than ever, a necessity for the struggle of the working class to have an anti-capitalist scope and a programme of rupture and subversion.

We say no to the policies of “rational management” or to an “EU without the Memorandum”, as is proposed by the Left of defeat. NAR and ANTARSIA see the issue of the anti-capitalist struggle as a whole in order to resist the attack on the working class and from that point of view they participate in the elections.

What is the issue of the elections on November 7th and what should be the subject matter of the political intervention in the elections?

 

The government (PASOK, social democrats), along with the parties that join forces with it (Democratic Left, Ecologists-Greens, the nationalist LA.O.S. and more), are trying to persuade us that “Kallikratis” (a new autocratic law that restructures the local administration of the state, minimizing the municipalities and creating fewer larger regions to be controlled by local commissioners) is on the line, along with the local administration and the personalities that will manage (successfully or not) the new and increased jurisdictions of the local state. They are in essence asking the working people to forget the dramatic situation they are in, to close their eyes to wage cuts, layoffs and unemployment, which is the harsh reality most of the people live in. They ask of them not to fight against the new reactionary and tax-collecting municipal they created, when it is obvious that these policies will inevitably collide with the increased social needs of the people. They ask of the people to be detached from reality and forget about the Memorandum, the IMF and the EU.

The basic background of the conflict for the elections will be the capitalist crisis and its consequences, but more importantly, the way in which we will deal with it and whether there will be a capitalist or a workers response to the crisis.

Are the coming elections a referendum against the Memorandum? There is no doubt that the Memorandum of the PASOK government with the EU and the IMF is the compression and the highlight of the capitalist and imperialist attack on the working class of our country. Its subversion is the first condition for the workers’ counterattack and the defence of workers’ rights. But the Memorandum is not the only issue; neither all the parties that appear to be against it are on the worker’s side. There is a capitalist crisis and the policies that were responsible for leading us there, especially for Greece, the policies of the governments of PASOK and “New Democracy” (right conservative  wing, former government). The direction of the Greek coalition of capital to reform the state and the economy, with policies such as the “Kallikratis” plan, the “Economical Stability Plan”, the commitments to the EMU (Economic and Monetary Union of the EU) and the directives of the European Union, they all point to a cruel anti-workers’ direction. These policies have been in the same direction both before and after the application of the Memorandum.

So, the workers’ and people’s resistance to the butchery of the Government the E.U. and the I.M.F. cannot be expressed by a simple “anti-Memorandum” vote. Antonis Samaras (president of ND) is against the Memorandum, without doubting the framework of this new-liberal policy. Even D. Bakogianni (former official of the ND) asks for a revision of the Memorandum. The merchants and craftsmen union President, K. Michalos, has denounced the Memorandum, thus expressing parts of the Greek bourgeois class, which are degraded compared to the foreign capital and fear they will not survive the prolonged recession. G. Dimaras (Region commissioner candidate in Attica, recently expelled from PASOK) stated he is against the memorandum but voted in favour of the horrible pension law, which implements the plans of EU-IMF and PASOK-ND. Al. Mitropoulos (the Region commissioner candidate in Attica of SYNaspismos, Euro-left party) stated he is against the Memorandum but not against the government. Alekos Alavanos (candidate, member of SYN who is against the choice of Mitropoulos and formed a front with groups from SYRIZA) in one of the first statements he made after the announcement of his candidacy, he set the dilemma: Memorandum or Growth, generally and vaguely. SYN states against the IMF but in favour of the euro and the EU. With regards to KKE (Greek communist party), it insists to underestimate the need and the capability of the labour movement to subvert the attack and the memorandum, referring to a blur “people’s authority”, with no revolution and a strong presence of petit bourgeois. NAR and ANTARSIA set the issue of anti-capitalist struggle altogether and by that point of view they participate in the elections.

 

What is the subject matter of our call to unity? First of all, against the Memorandum, the stability plan, the reactionary “junta” of Government-EU-IMF that governs with a parliamentary coup and the use of economic and police terrorism. It is a call to break free of all the chains that bind us to the troika (government-EU-IMF), the “Sacred Alliance” of the foreign capital, and all the measures that were taken in its name.

 

It is a call against the government and the cruel policy of PASOK, for the defeat and subversion of the dominant policies and every ambitious administrator that will follow the same policies of pillaging of worker’s rights. Today, there can be no delusion about the IMF led PASOK and its fully capitalist mutation. We say “NO” to the accomplice N.D., who preaches against the Memorandum (hoping to be the bourgeoisie alternative in the future), but has the same policy and measures in its agenda. LA.O.S. (nationalist-religious party) supports the EU and IMF and encourages nationalism, racism and anti-communism.

 

We vote against the “Kallikratis” plan, which not only forms part of the agenda of the Memorandum and the whole attempt to cut all state financing of social needs, but also reconstitutes the urban state in a different base, so that it can be sealed from the public discontent and encourage municipal taxing and privatization and commercialization of all social services. We struggle against “Kallikratis”, but not because we support the old municipality structure or because of a delusion about a local administration for the people, within capitalism.

 

But, today, “NO” is not enough. The workers seek a plan that can be an actual response to this attack. The forces of ANTARSIA promote to the popular movement and to their common action with other left groups, an anticapitalist programme of struggle. The main axes are:

·         Stop debt payment – erase the debt,

·         nationalize banks and big enterprises with no compensation and under workers’ control,

·         exit from EMU and the euro,

·         anticapitalist exit from the capitalist- racist- warmongering EU,

·         prohibition of layoffs,

·         raises in wages and pensions,

·         free public health and education for everyone,

·         tax exempts on workers’ income and basic consumption products,

·         increase taxes for the capital and the big enterprises,

·         stop buying weapons,

·         legalize all immigrants.

 

The adoption of this necessary plan and its political conditions (struggle against the government, labour movement, connection with struggle for the peoples’ authority) are vital for the Left. This programme of struggle is not about ideological separations and revolutionary fantasies, but a necessary content in order to repel the attack. From this point of view, persistence to the slaughterhouse of the EU and the euro by SYN (reformist party), the proposal for a renegotiation of the debt without exit from the EU by Al.Alavanos and the verbalist denials of KKE to promote a sharp left political plan of struggle to the massive movement, cannot give an answer given the requirements of our time.

 

The front of the anticapitalist, revolutionary, communist left and radical ecology, ANTARSIA, participates in the November 7th local administration elections and is leading the way by creating anticapitalist left groups, movements and ballots in 11 out of the 13 Regions and most municipalities all over Greece.