and s which the most moderate /V, No 46, February 13, 1984.
International Viewpoint 17 June 1985 with so many political and military May 29, to ratify the accord he reached
GREECE
Papandreou won but what was his game ?
The June 2 parliamentary elections, among other things, were a challenge to the flexibility of the Greek language, and the press responded by inventing some terms. One of its favourites was "dikommatismos" ("two-partyism"). In fact, Andreas Papandre us Pan Hellenic Socialist Movement the two largest parties, (PASOK) and the right-wing New Democracy (ND) of Konstantinos Mitzotakis polarised the vote to an unprecedented extent. The PASOK got 46.84% and the ND, 40.16. The latter completed its absorption of following the fall of the colonels in 1974. On the other hand, PASOK tightened the squeeze on the Moscowloyalist Communist Party (KKE), the largest of the "traditional left" parties, to use Papandreou's phrase. In fact, the ND did not have to be too unhappy about vote, which was substantially higher than its score in the parliamentary elections in 1981 and even in the European elections in 1984. Moreover both the left and right press agreed that the ND had come out of the elections better organized and with a renewed the far-richt vote which had some strength in the years the far-right vote, which had some strength In the years credibility.
Gerry FOLEY
The major loser, the Greek press agreed, including the KKE daily Rizospastis, was the pro-Moscow party. In the 1981 parliamentary elections, the KKE got 10.93% of the vote. In the European elections of the same year it got 12.84%. The Eurocommunist CPInterior (KKE-es) got 1.34% in the 1981 parliamentary elections and 5.29 in the European elections of that year. In the 1984 European elections, the KKE got 11.64% and the KKE-es, 3.42%. (1)
In the 1985 parliamentary elections, on the other hand, the two CPs got respectively 9.98% and 1.78%. The KKE-es. actually increased its vote by about 40% over its 1981 score. But since it lost out in the competition with the KKE long ago and was reduced to a trace element in electoral politics, an increase on that order did not change much. The important thing is that it failed to re-establish itself as even a minor electoral force, shattering the dreams aroused by its score in last year's European elections.
So, the 4% or so that PASOK gained over its vote in the 1984 European elections seems to have come mainly from potential CP voters.
In fact, in last year's EEC elections, PASOK seemed to be in trouble. It held only a narrow lead over the ND, which it had trounced in 1981. In 1984, PASOK got only 41.58% as against 38.05% for the ND. In particular, PASOK's vote declined disproportionately in the more politicalized urban areas. That pattern generally continued this time. In Athens-A, PASOK got 44% in 1981, 34.71% in the 1984 elections, and 38.39% in the recent vote. In
Athens-B it got 48.73 in 1981 and 42.59% in 1985.
In the A constituency of Peiraieus, the heavily proletarian port of Athens,
PASOK got 48.17 in 1981, and 44.24% thic timo In this constituency also the this time. In this constituency also the International Viewpoint 17 June 1985
KKE vote collapsed, going from 12.20 in the 1984 elections to 4.12% in these. On the other hand, in Peiraieus-B, a very left distriet, the PASOK vote was down from 1981 elections, but not more than the national average. It fell from 51.16% in 1981 to 50.14, showing a sharp recovery from the 42.34% of the European elections. On the other hand, the KKE vote was down significantly from 21.28 in the 1981 elections to 17.28%. In Salonika, the country's other main city, PASOK's vote fell in constituency A from 47.63% in 1981 to 41.74%, and the KKE's vote from 13.19 to 9.31%. In constituency B the PASOK vote fell from 46.75% to 41.19%, while the KKE vote increased somewhat from 10.53% in 1981 to 11.67%.
In commenting on the PASOK victory, Dimitris K. Tsikhogios wrote in the June 7 issue of the independent left weekly Anti: "It would be an exaggeration for anyone to call the results of these elections surprising but they represent a very great victory for PASOK. After four years of running the government, it has managed to cut its losses to 2.2%. That is, it has held 95% of its voters. No other government party has done this since the Second World War at least. The Radical Union (ERE) lost more than 12% of its vote between 1956 and 1958, and it had to use force and fraud to regain its 1956 percentage in 1961, only to see its vote collapse in 1963-64."
Moreover, the PASOK achieved this victory after seeing a clear erosion of its credibility, shown by the 1984 elections. It was suffering from the same ills as the Socialist Party government in France, having failed to live up to the expectations of the voters who put it in power. Living standards continued to decline, little concrete was being done about breaking from NATO and expelling the US bases, military spending has soared, and the government was floating schemes for increase militarization. (2) militarization. (4)
On the other hand, the memory of right-wing dictatorship and repressive right-wing governments before that remains quite fresh in Greece. It, therefore, seems that Papandreou's move of removing the right's anchor man, Konstantinos Karamanlis, from the presidency on March 9 and staging a duel with the right paid off in a new fouryear mandate for his government. He presented the elections as a straight leftright contest, in which PASOK was the only alternative to the right. The mass jubiliation at PASOK's victory obviously reflected the belief that the forces of reaction had been defeated and that the way was opened for progress.
In addition, PASOK may have gained from the fact that Greek farmers are still enjoying some benefits from joining the EEC. This may also have been a reason for opting for early elections, because it is not likely to last. In fact, modernization of agriculture made necessary by EEC competition is going to impose heavy social costs in the Greek countryside.
After "dikommatismos," the Greek press's favorite new word seemed to be avodynami," that is, "self-sufficient," a PASOK government that can rule on its own without needing the support of any other forces in parliament, although indeed it had a larger absolute majority before.
With 46.84% of the vote, PASOK got a majority of 162 out of 300 seats. It benefitted notably from a new electoral law it pushed through parliament. In fact, as the columnist Antenor noted in Anti, each PASOK seat represents 18,144 votes: each ND one represents
These figures are from the June 3 issue of Elevthotypia, and represent incomplete returns. The comment in the Greek papers a week later, however, indicates that there were no substantial changes.
2. See,"Papandreou talks peace but steps
International Viewpoint. No 62, October 20, up arms race, from Ergatike Pale,
1984.
5
20,634; each KKE seat, 42,459 voters.
And for its 117,050 votes the KKE-es got only one deputy.
What an "autodynami" government means in effect now is that Papandreou's already considerable personal role has been still more reinforced. Among other things, the president is no longer a counterweight. The new one, Kristos
Sartzetakis, does not have the sort of base of his own that Karamanlis did. Furthermore, it is an open secret that Papandreou intends to reduce the constitutional powers of this office.
Moreover, in his first news conference after the election, he pledged to "separate the movement [PASOK] from the government." (3)
Despite all the right's denunciations of Papandreou in the past as a dangerous demagogue, the dominant forces seemed anything but worried by the outcome of this election. For example, in its of this editorial "The Lessons of the June 2 Vote," Oikonomikos Takhydromos, the most authoritative business weekly, made the following comments:
"The initial and perhaps the most important conclusion that can be drawn from these elections is that it is not the parties of the Communist left that expressed what the "Change" really meant and that PASOK would interpret the meaning of its 1981 vote and advance the wishes of those voters. Even if we assume that some supporters of the left voted for PASOK out of fear that the ND would win ... no one can say those who voted for PASOK reject the sort of "Change" it offers and prefer that advanced by the two Communist parties. On the other hand, the fact that despite the well-known desertions of Marxists from PASOK before the elections and their joining of KKE, the strength of the latter has declined substantially. This means that these people were an alien body in the governing party...
"Today, it should be clear that PASOK and its leadership need not be so sensitive to left pressure or pay so much attention to the noisy phrasemongering of the left, which represents only about 10% of the Greek people ...
"The second conclusion, which follows from the first, is that the Greek people have approved not the failures and mistakes of the PASOK ... but its fundamental moderate political line. The latter, despite the party's extreme rhetoric ["megalostomia," literally,
"big-mouthedness"], has been sensible and realistic (despite occasional harmful backsliding) ...
"To be more clear, what the great mass of the Greek people who support
PASOK have endorsed is not only what this party has done positively but what in the last analysis it has not done. What the Greek people have endorsed is remaining in NATO, the acceptance of the fact (which is bearing fruit) of EEC membership, equidistancing ourselves from the big blocks, equal condemnation of American and Russian nuclear weapons, a prudent handling of the question of American bases, a more favorable attitude to private enterprise, a realistic attitude to foreign capital ..."
The KKE, from its standpoint, drew a similar conclusion. It accused PASOK of having waged an anti-Communist campaign and preparing a reconciliation with US imperialism. "A Turn to the
Right," the KKE daily headlined its report of Papandreou's first press conference after his victory.
"With the answers he gave yesterday in Zappeios, the premier left no doubt that both on economic and foreign policy questions his options will be still more conservative than in the past four years.
He also made it clear that in order to follow this faint-hearted line, the PASOK leadership considers it necessary to continue to extend the anti-Communist attack that it mounted throughout the electoral campaign."
Rizospastis went on to cite the following examples: Papandreou called for improving relations with the US. He refused to give any clear answers when asked about the deadline for removal of US bases. He refused to say anything definite about the removal of US nuclear weapons, arguing that the denuclearization of the Balkans now depended on what the Romanian government did. He said that the EEC was not an issue now but rather "what policy to follow in it." He said that Greece's relationship to NATO would not change but that the problem was getting it to recognize the status quo in the Aegean. And finally the premier said that he would continue to follow an economic policy of "stabilization," that is, austerity.
The KKE daily noted with disapproval Papandreou's charge that the two CPs had waged a "one-front" war against PASOK and failed to recognise his government's "importance for the left." conference in its June 6 issue, Augi, the Commenting - on Papandreou's daily of the KKE-es. made similar points. In addition, it pointed out that PASOK had failed to abolish the special police units and that the promised "democratization and independence of the union movement" had turned into "total dependence, a new government unionism and exaltation of the spirit of splitting the workers."
On the other hand, the Soviet press hailed Papandreou's victory simply as an "Inspiring Triumph of the Democratic
Forces." (Izvestia, June 4.) That could represent appreciation for Papandreou's verbal opposition to US policy and his condemnation of Solidarnosc.
The KKE attributed its losses to
PASOK's "political terrorism," that is, its foreing the left voters to cast their ballots for it as the only alternative to the return of the right to the government. In fact Ergatike Pale, the paper of the Greek Fourth Internationalists, wrote before the election "The impasse of the policy of the reformist
CPs ... is becoming clearer every day to the broadest masses of working people. The weak profile of these parties in the campaign is an indication of their lack of any serious alternative. The emergence of the dilemma, PASOK or the right, for the working masses is an indication of their bankruptcy." It noted: "Especially after the rise of
PASOK, the position of these parties has swung back and forth between full support of the policy of PASOK and fainthearted criticism of it."
In the June 6 Anti, Stelios Kouloglou argued that the KKE had been suffering from the sort of loss of credibility among its more political urban voters as the PASOK, and that its major losses came precisely in its old bastions, where people could vote for it without worrying about wasting their votes. He presented figures showing that in absolute terms, the KKE vote had declined by 7.1% in Athens, Salonika, and Peiraieus, while rising about 6.9% in other areas.
On the other hand, both CPs pointed to seats that could have been kept from the right if PASOK had accepted a joint campaign.
The KKE argued that its relative losses had not fundamentally reduced its strength, which is evident, although they represented a serious immediate setback and a continuation of the party's long-term marginalization by PASOK. The emphasis in the KKE press and reports in the independent left press indicate clearly that the party is now going to try to show its strength on the social level to prove that it still has bargaining cards. It could give an important impetus to struggles. Unfortunately, besides its opportunism, the KKE has a very sectarian tradition. The sort of drum banging that it has started appears more useful in hardening up the ranks than uniting people in struggle.
Ergatike Pale opposed a vote for PASOK, while calling for a stand against the right. "By its position on the president and waving the bogeyman of the right, PASOK is trying to close the eyes of working people to the catastrophic effects of the policy it has followed for the past four years and conceal as much as possible what it plans for the future." The statement ended by explaining the need for a real anticapitalist left that could give leadership to the mass struggle against PASOK's right-wing policies after the election. 3. Ta Nea, June 6, 1985.
International Viewpoint 17 June 1985