Do not get irritated or scared by the title of this post. It is just a scenario circulating in Greece in the last 24 hours in Greece. A scenario that set the political parties on fire, after Alexis Tsipras, leader of left-wing SYRIZA, declared that he would support a coalition with nationalist Independent Greeks party of Panos Kammenos in order to form an anti-memorandum government after the elections of May 6th.
Speaking to website TVXS.gr, Tsipras said “If we would need five votes to achieve a coalition government, we wouldn’t say NO”, when he was asked about possible cooperation options after the elections.
Exactly what Tsipras said was: “We as left, we submit our proposal and we’d need five votes from Kammenos party. If he gives us these votes as tolerance or support, we won’t throw them away. We won’t say, we don’t want them. the rest of you can continue with the Memorandum of Understanding.”
The option set the political world in Greece on fire, and party officials tried to downgrade the issue saying that Tsipras implied the ‘vote of tolerance’ and that “nevertheless everything is theoretical, for the case that Tsipras would be assigned for exploratory talks to form a government, for the case that KKE and Democratic Left [of Fotis Kouvelis] would agree on coalition, and only 4-5 votes would be missing [for a vote of confidence].”
Caricature TA NEA: Papariga, Tsipras, Kammenos
The young and much-promising politician whose party maybe becomes third according to public surveys, reitarated his call for coalition with the left parties and even with the Greek Communist Party (KKE).
“Why shouldn’t Aleka Papariga, KKE general secretary, become a Prime Minister?” he asked.
Reactions
Tsipras proposal triggered strong reactions among the Greek political world, and the very first rejection came the leader immediately involved, that is Panos Kammenos. “We have substantial differences with the left” he said.
Also KKE rejected any call to form a coalition government as the party insists in remaining in the opposition. “Should KKE be assigned to form a government, we would reject it” Aleka Papariga said during a press conference on Friday.
A clear “NO” came also from Fotis Kouvelis (Democratic Left) when asked about options of coalition with Kammenos.
Socialist PASOK and conservative Nea Dimokratia accused Tsipras of having already reached a ‘secret agreement’ with Kammenos.
Elections public surveys
With the exception of SYRIZA and PASOK the majority of political leaders officially reject coalition government options with major rival parties. Even though no public opinion survey would give any party the absolute majority.
As the publication of public opinion polls is forbidden two weeks before the elections, the latest poll of April 17/20102 gave :
ND 22.3% (110 seats) – PASOK 17.8% (48 seats) – right/nationalists Independent Greeks 9.9% (26 seats) – left SYRIZA 9.8% (26 seats)
Communist KKE 9.7% (26 seats) – Democratic Left 8.6% (23 seats) – extreme-right Chrysi Avgi 5.7% (15 seats) – far-right LAOS 3.9% (10 seats)
Ecologists-Green 3.1% (8 seats) – centre Democratic Alliance 3% (8 seats).
44% of the respondents forecast a coalition government of ND and PASOK.
“Undecided” voters tend to vote in favor of small parties like Democratic Left, Independent Greeks and SYRIZA.
The 50 Seats-Bonus
The 50-seats bonus goes to the first party and the rest of 250 parliament seats is distributed among the first party and the rest. Its calculation is based on a mathematical formula that I cannot currently explain here. Fact is seats are not distributed according to a democratic manner. Another fact is that as the percentage of the parties that do not pass the 3% threshold increases, the percentage needed to form a majority government decreases.
In general it is said that 44% of votes is needed to form an absolute majority party (151 seats).
Coalition Government Scenarios
What the challenge of these historic elections? What’s the dilemma for the voters? Political parties bet on the pro or contra Memorandum of Understanding (loan agreements) stand. The voters bet on additional qualities like “punishing those who brought the country to such grave economic situation” (primarily PASOK, secondarily ND), “getting rid of bad Greek habits like corruption and intermingling.”
No matter what the challenges and the dilemmas, one of the big parties will definetely will be main coalition government partner.
Scenario A
ND wins the elections. Should ND and PASOK get together no more than 37.5 % ( as other surveys indicated) a third party would be needed to form a coalition government.
The third coalition party could be Democratic Alliance (although most polls indicated it would hardly enter the Parliament) and Democtratic Left. DA is pro MoU, while DL position is rather unclear. Most probably the party that consists mainly of former SYRIZA and former PASOK officials and MPs, hold a moderate position towards the MoU, considering that parts of the MoU would be for the benefit of the country, if properly implemented. DA is pro coalition with ND and PASOK, DL against.
Scenario B
PASOK wins the elections. Hardly anyone believes in this scenario. Theoretically PASOK could possibly form a coalition with parties of the centre-left (SYRIZA) and KKE or the right (LAOS, Independent Greeks). Practically impossible for two reasons: 1) the percentage of 37.5% is not achieved and 2) The four parties reject the MoOU
Scenario C
An anti-MoU front consisting of KKE-SYRIZA-DEMOCRATIC LEFT-LAOS-INDEPENDENT GREEKS is practically and politically impossible. For two reasons 1) KKE and Independent Greeks and LAOS have grave differences 2) Among the anti-MoU front hardly a party could be first, therefore the 50-seats-bonus would be missing. In such case the needed percentage to form a coalition government would rise at 56% to 57%.
Scenario D
A left front consisting of KKE-SYRIZA-DEMOCRATIC LEFT-ECOGREENS-DHMAR (small centre-left party that supports Kammenos) has hardly chances to form a coalition government because without the 50-seats-bonus they could not get together more than 130 seats.
Scenario E
No coalition partners achieve the necessary percentage to form a government, or they do but disagree and the country heads again towards elections.
Greeks will experience a longer period of political instability, lack of governance and paralyzed* public services.
And Greece’ lenders will have the one nightmare after the other.
*Last week the father of a friend went to an Athens tax office to apply to be exempted from the “emergency property tax” due to disability. “You should come after the elections” the 86-year-old man was told. The man had been waiting for 6 months to appear in front of the IKA-disability committee. And now that he finally got the confirmation (beginning of April),he would have to wait until the next government is formed…. More or less 8 months to fix an issue with the Greek state. Bravo!
And non of the above coalitions have any real detailed plan of tackling that problem. It’s all just childish play about puppets in what cabinet.
I really don’t care if I were to be governed by the Devil himself I only this Augeas Stable is cleaned out totally. What we need is a return of Iraklis!
What really p****s me off is that in another country they were able to have a government resigning and parliament hammered out a total austerity package worth 14 billion euro in just TWO DAYS!
With growth measures in it and real Green policies… Unbelievable but true… And still I would give my right arm to find a way not to spent a couple of months a year there instead of here. Am I stupid or what?!