Thursday, May 10, 2012



Back to the polls in Greece

Greek voters went to the polls over the weekend, and threw out their pro-austerity quisling government. But despite a resounding defeat for the European Central Bank's proxies, no-one had an obvious majority. In these circumstances, the Greek Constitution calls for the three largest parties, in order of size, to be given an "exploratory mandate" to see if they can put together a coalition.

That process now appears to have failed. New Democracy, the largest quisling party, could not find support. Neither can SYRIZA, the largest anti-austerity party. PASOK, another quisling party, is in the same boat as new Democracy. While there is still the formality of Presidential mediation, it seems certain now that Greece is going back to the polls. The quislings are hoping to terrify people into voting for them with the threat of economic collapse (something which their German masters are playing along with). But they may instead find themselves rejected even more strongly, and SYRIZA given an even clearer mandate to reject austerity.

(Meanwhile, as for Germany's threats, if they want to push Greece out of the Euro, they'll take down Spain, Portugal, and maybe Italy - and likely the whole Euro system. Their "threat" is to shoot themselves in the foot. I'm not sure why greeks would care about that)