Dark reactionary scene after the elections in Greece. Battle to overthrow it

Dark reactionary scene after the elections in Greece. Battle to overthrow it

The chilling dominance of the reactionary politics of New Democracy and the overall right-wing shift of the political scene emerges from the result of the elections of May 21st. New Democracy increased its share of the vote over 40% and can claim that Right is the dominant force in the Greek political spectrum. New Democracy prevailed with the support of capitalist institutions and the establishment media, promoting social alliances using the state apparatus and expressing a policy of stable government, pro-EU and NATO, which was not questioned by SYRIZA, PASOK etc. Kyriakos Mitsotakis made it clear in his speech that he wants to lead the country to a new election at 25^th of June in order to gain comfortable majority (even a 2/3 majority that will allow him to change the Constitution) and implement his reactionary reforms.

The result is a crash for SYRIZA, losing one third of its electoral power and having a 20% gap with New Democracy, the biggest gap between first and second party in recent parliamentary history. The entrapment within the dominant framework of capital and the EU ultimately strengthened the New Democracy government that implements this policy. It is an unprecedented ‘success’ of SYRIZA that the main opposition party manages to fall dramatically and the government party rises! It was a strategic defeat of the proposal for a ‘progressive coalition government’ with PASOK. Alexis Tsipras, in order to promote this cooperation, went so far as to argue that "there are no substantial differences" in the programmatic positions of the two parties. PASOK got 11.48% from 8.1% (up 3.38%), a relatively good result. It will be ‘pushed’ to become the major Centre party again, benefiting from SYRIZA’s dissolving condition with it’s narrative of ‘bringing down Mitsotakis’ collapsing. Hegemony in the space of the Centre will be challenged again in the next elections.

No analysis predicted the magnitude of New Democracy's prevalence. In this fluid and changing political landscape it is extremely difficult to make safe predictions, especially in a far from normal period in which for almost three years people were confined to their homes and the outbreak of war questioning any certainty. It is characteristic that all polls (even exit polls) failed to predict the huge size of the difference and the magnitude of SYRIZA's electoral collapse. There are large differences in results between large urban centers and the countryside. There is anger in segments of the popular classes, but at the same time the general sense of fear also induces a conservative turn to the right. Mainstream media present this as the closing of the cycle that opened in 2010-2012 as a full return to neoliberal normality.

Extremely worrying is the rise of far-right, religious and nationalist parties. The Far right gained a significant total percentage, expressed not only in Kyriakos Velopoulos’s Greek Solution that was already in parliament, but also a new party Niki that came few votes away from entering parliament. No poll predicted Niki’s percentage, which was based upon para-church connections, especially in Northern Greece. It managed to be one of the recipients of the Golden Dawn electorate. Zoe Konstantopoulou’s Course of Freedom party also came short of entering parliament. Even though its leader comes from SYRIZA (former Speaker of the Parliament House), it moved beyond any reference to the left into ‘neither left nor right’ populist and nationalist discourse. It was mainly supported by conservative electoral base, even by former Golden Dawn members and an infamous fascist newspaper. It is a party of personal cult, with no connection to the movements.

Dealing with Far Right rise does not come through siding with the bourgeois parties and legal interventions, but is judged on the politicization of struggles, on developing ties with the working class and the overall confrontation with nationalism, religiosity and irrationalism.

The Communist Party KKE shows a remarkable rise with 7.22% from 5.30% in 2019. KKE saw an increased share of the vote, mainly because it had a relatively strong presence in movements, presenting as the only parliamentary left opposition of workers and youth. However, more than ever KKE was lacking political radical objectives in its intervention and pre-election activity reveals that KKE appeared as a "safe choice" of an "existing left" in the elections, with a position that ‘nothing can really change because conditions are not ripe enough’.

MeRA25 (DiEM25) was the only left party in decline. It was left out of parliament, which seems to be paying for the general defeat of the current that created SYRIZA. It’ s failure was also a result of its complementary role compared to SYRIZA in the consciousness of most voters. The result is also a defeat for MeRA25’s strategy, trying to repeat the political strategy of SYRIZA in 2015, which it had called "pragmatic disobedience", with unrealistic proposals within the eurozone. Varoufakis’ Europeanist obsessions are cancelling his ‘progressive’ agenda. MeRA25 has also no real intervention to labour and youth movements, it is based only to a personal political marketing, estranged to the Greek left.

ANTARSYA got 0.54% (from 0.41%) and 31,650 votes (from 23,240). ANTARSYA participated in the election by confronting the electoral law with the anti-democratic 3% limit for parliamentary participation, the theories of the "lost vote", censorship and exclusions from the media and the multiple financial obstacles for the intervention of the working class and anticapitalist Left. In these circumstances its relative electoral rise reflects its support from militants of the left wing of the workers’ movement and radical youth. This rise is of value in conditions where an attempt has been made to discredit it and subordinate it to neo-reformist political projects. ANTARSYA put forward crucial political objectives of confrontation and overthrow of bourgeois politics, bourgeois governments and their parties, the EU and NATO. It emerged that only a Left that strengthens the overall anti-capitalist profile can stand against the all-out attack of the system.

Given that we have continuous political battles ahead of us where all political plans will be tested, we must see the further pace of ANTARSYA in a self-critical and at the same time demanding spirit. The actual relation of forces is more complex and there is a strong chance of major social explosions in the near future. The main issue for ANTARSYA is its contribution to a broader and at the same time more coherent front of the independent anti-capitalist revolutionary left that unites all the fighting forces that want to stand against the bourgeois offensive and do not fit into the political limits of the parliamentary left and reformist political projects.