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Greece Elections (5/6/12)
Greece is kinda fucked right now.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17950294
They're facing the worst economic crisis in their modern history, one that's due to a myriad of factors and not easily explained. Needless to say, there have been a rash of austerity measures that only served to fuel the flames of protest. And now that the vaguely center-right government has been seen as killing the country in a sea of debt, Greeks are very likely to vote in anybody that is thought of as an extreme reaction to the current government. Which is why far-left and fascist parties are becoming more popular than ever.
I really don't know much about Greek politics, but it would serve us good to at least see what happens in the elections tomorrow. Unfortunately, I can foresee the fascist parties gaining traction, especially due to their harsh stances on immigration. Many European countries don't like "immigrants" much at the moment.
Some helpful links.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/20125291733265576.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/eurocrisis/2010/12/2010126185626194882.html
Comments
The left is expected to win but one of the leftist parties has said they won't form a coalition with anyone.
Also tomorrow, the French presidential elections is happening with Hollande expecting to win
Well Hollande is most likely winning that one, so not much more to discuss other than if he's really going to be better than Sarkozy (yes).
Aside from the current crisis, Greece has had something of a history of political instability. In the late 40s/early 50s there was a civil war between the US/British backed Royal government and Communists, then in the late 60s the monarchy was overthrown by a group of right-wing Army officers who established a military dictatorship for several years. Some of these fascist guys are survivors of that period.
Basically, I think a lot of Greece's problems are similar to Italy's. Relatively short history as a unified country; history of weak central government that lacked general respect; a lot of political corruption and quasi-feudal hangovers; tax evasion like you wouldn't believe.
Tl; dr - this goes deeper than the latest economic crisis.
The only thing preventing the rest of the Balkans going up in flames like Greece, despite same problems and a similar background, is the fact that they, being young democracies, unlike Greece, still have a cryptoauthoritarian system where the ruling party keeps tabs on all the business of the state and basically prevents any political movements which have the potential to pose a threat to the regime from springing up.
So, the far right has got nothing better to do than punch people at football games, and the far left is too busy getting stoned at the campus. Although I think that an overthrow of the Greek regime might definitely spread the revolutionary sentiment. Which may or may not be a good thing.
I'm not aware of Serbia's economic situation, but since it's not a member of the EU it's fairly divorced from what's happening in Greece and the larger Eurozone crisis. So Greece has a much higher probability of voting in more radical groups, especially given the fact that there's a largely reactionary but acceptable sentiment to get rid of whoever is in office right now and replace them with a more radical politician. The main reason the fascists have a high chance of getting in power is general anti-immigration sentiment.
Not quite
The fascist party has been handing out food parcels to the Greek poor
And that.
The worst thing is that the Golden Dawn, the Greek fascist party, isn't even fascist in the sense of the usual far-right European parties trying to portray themselves as more innocuous, but still getting classified as fascists. These guys are as open about their fascism as Hitler was.
Wasn't Hitler openly fascist though?
He was, of course. What I said was that European far-right, nationalist parties usually prefer to distance themselves from fascism, which they tend to be accused of, but the Golden Dawn is an exception. They even go so far as to use Nazi rhetoric, symbols etc.
Yes I know they do, which leads to hilarious incidents of the BNP using a Spitfire from 303 squadron in their material. 303 squadron was a Polish squadron
As I pointed out in my thread on the London mayoral election, the BNP candidate for that is originally from Uruguay. This is pretty hilarious for a party that hates immigrants (and tends to deny that this is just because the immigrants are mostly black or brown). He got 28,000-ish votes, by the way, which is pathetic out of a population of 7 million.
"The Golden Dawn", by the way, was also the name of the English "magic order" where Alasteir Crowley first made his name in the 1890s.
To me, "The Golden Dawn" sounds like a cliche name for a mysterious organization from an RPG or a fantasy book.
^ Come to think of it, didn't I kill them in The Elder Scrolls IV?
[Google]
No, that was the Mythic Dawn.
On-topic, I found this quote particularly interesting:
Yet still, what largely went unreported in Christoulas' case was that his suicide note called for an armed uprising, for "young people with no future to... take up arms and hang this country's traitors." The disparity between the note Christoulas left behind and national media coverage widely condemning the skirmishes that followed his death and funeral as violent is exemplary of an official discourse that has largely obfuscated the root causes of the crisis.
I once read a fascinating book about them - basically, the whole organisation was founded on some massive bullshit about secret magical documents "found" by one of the men who set it up, and it fell apart, with much drama, when this was revealed to be bullshit. All the main people, including Crowley, then stormed off and set up their own groups.
Actually, it was a lot like a really bad internet forum, except with long, angry letters instead of wall-of-text posts.
If the fascists get in and Greece starts World War III, I hope we get to blow up the Parthenon. It'd make for a super-cool set piece in the video game.
Somewhere there is a posse of architects/architecture nerds riding out to kick you for saying that. Thankfully they will probably be stymied by a another group of architects/architecture nerds who have a hate on for Greek/Roman architecture. Still though, architects want to find a way to use your bones for a doorframe now.
Well, it already blew up in 1637 because some genius Ottomans thought it would be a good idea to store all their ammunition there.
And just in case you were wondering how much Golden Dawn wants to be the Nazis, here's their flag:
Hollande won
...the French Presidental Election
Update on Greece:
Yay for Hollande!
But let's return to Greece - according to the polls held at the ballot locations, New Democracy is the first, SYRIZA is the second (yay for SYRIZA!) and PASOK is only third. The Nazis will enter the parliament.
Source.
Damn, ninja'd.
If there's another PASOK/ND coalition government, man, there will most certainly not be good times in Greece tonight. The opposition is so fragmented that even if the winner only gets ~30% of the vote, they'll still end up with 50+ seats (50 extra seats are awarded to the winning party).
From another forum
But even if they get just 20%, the winning party is guaranteed to get a big boost, thanks to the whole 50 free seats thing.
Update
:
Update:
Its looking like New Democracy are going to win this election but they wont be able to form a coalition.