At least 45 burned down shops, banks and cafes, some 160 civilians and policemen injured, looting, thousands of hurled stones and hundreds of fired tear gas devices, 199 “YES”, 74 “NO”, 45 expelled MPs: The second Memorandum of Understanding and the new austerity package passed by the Greek Parliament on Sunday leaving the Papademos coalition government wounded and the government parties smashed.
PASOK’s seats went down to 130, Nea Dimokratia’s to 62 and LAOS’ to 16. With PASOK being the strongest party in the Parliament, the second strongest party is this of the independent MPs. Their number increased to 64, after PASOK, ND and LAOS expelled those down-voting the MoU immediately after the results.
PASOK MP Anna Vagena took the oath in the morning, replacing a resigned PASOK MP, and she was expelled from the party in the evening for having voted “NO”. PASOK lexpelled some ‘historical’ high ranking party officials like Vaso Papandreou, Louka Katseli and Haris Kastanidis.
When Papademos government came to power in November 2011, 255 MPS had given their support at the confidence vote. Today, no political party has the absolute majority. Nea Dimokratia could trigger elections within minutes, should it withdraw its support to Papademos government.
Coalition government partner LAOS, withdrew his MPs during the voting. Officially LAOS is still government partner.
The MoU ‘bombed’ the grounds of the political system, triggering the collapse of the ‘systemic’ parties governing the country since 1974, after the fall of the military dictatorship.
Can a parliament and a government with such composition last?
A government reshuffle was expected today after four ministers from LAOS and three from PASOK resigned on Friday.
There is talk that more MPs may resign from PASOK and ND.
PS For those ondering about some gaps in the numbers of expelled MPs and government parties seats: The MoU was voted also by a small party (Bakoyanni), some expelled MPs had voted in favor of the MoU “in principle” but rejected Article 1 (low wages, labour rights provisions).
