SitRep: Is there a civil war in Greece’s near future?
Elections held on Sunday, May 6th in Greece left the country with a splintered group of political parties vying for control of the parliament. Voter anger gave seats to parties on both of the extreme ends of the political spectrum, including for the first time, the ultra-nationalist party Golden Dawn. These further-leaning parties gained seats at the expense of the previous coalition government parties who accepted EU austerity measures and allowed Lucas Papademos, a former EU banker who was not democratically elected, to be appointed prime minister in a constitutionally questionable manner. With parliamentary seats spread across seven parties and no party with a clear majority, a coalition government must be formed. If the economic situation in Greece was normal, the creation of a coalition government would not be a challenge beyond the typical political jockeying that takes place in such a procedure. The economic situation in Greece is anything but normal however, and the EU-mandated austerity measures that caused people to vote in new leadership are thwarting any efforts to form a coalition as well. As this week is bearing out, there is no chance a coalition government will be formed in Greece and so the people will go back to the voting booth to try again.
A crash-course on how to form a coalition government in Greece.
The anger Greek voters took with them to the polls on Sunday will not have ebbed by the next round of voting, so it is likely that the Greek people will continue to vote for those parties on the ends of the political spectrum offering relief from austerity measures which will only exacerbate the failure of subsequent attempts to form a coalition government. The inability of Greek political parties to get their own house in order will cause both Greek citizens as well as those countries with a vested economic interest in Greece to begin to look for other solutions to install a stable government.
A crash-course on Greece’s political parties.
My coup d’oeil of the situation in Greece is this: A new election will be called. In light of France’s recent election of Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande and the growing wariness of Golden Dawn’s post-election behavior, more Greek voters will swing to the left. If Golden Dawn loses its toehold on political legitimacy by losing seats in the next round of voting, I believe we will see its members fomenting violence against the left. Such violence has the potential to spark a civil war which foreign governments and corporations will exploit as they look for opportunities to back a crony government (think Africa and the Arab Spring) and gain access to infrastructure and resources within a country. I see Golden Dawn having no qualms with accepting outside support in its efforts to gain control of Greece as they will take an ‘ends justify the means’ mentality to such outsider assistance.
C. Ryan Knight
Michael Ross
Michael, do you think Greeks will be able to successfully tap into the strengths of the Arab Spring and gain international support and solidarity? The contours of their struggle is, as you of course know, vastly different from that of Egyptians, Tunisians, etc.
Ryan,
My answer to your question depends largely on your definitions of the phrases “the strengths of the Arab Spring” and “international support and solidarity.” Would you mind expanding on those ideas to continue the discussion?
Sure. By “strengths of the Arab Spring,” I was thinking chiefly of popular will. While Euro leaders still advocate major austerity as the primary way to address the crisis, Greeks are deeply resistant to this outside pressure (as seen, for instance, with the far left party’s push-back to austerity) as invasive and uncalled for. I suppose what I’m wondering is whether Greeks will be able to “reframe” the narrative over debt and economic crisis in an attempt to shift the weight of recovery from themselves to deeper-pocketed individuals, groups, and governments.
By “international support and solidarity,” I mean approval of Greeks’ assertion of their will over outside measures being imposed. If they saw Greeks successfully transfer responsibility for paying for the crisis, outsiders might take heart and try to take similar measures in their own countries.
Having thought about this further, I’m basically wondering if Greece could fuse the Arab Spring to the Occupy movements. The Occupy movements obviously draw inspiration from the Arab Spring, but it seems the two branched off as far as their purpose goes: the ousting of regimes and reorganization of power with the Arab Spring, and various economic matters with the Occupy movement. If Greece were able to fuse these two, I’d be very interested to see what the results would be. (I doubt this will happen, but still I’m fascinated by the thought.)
Thanks for the clarification. I figured that’s what you meant, but I wanted the framework in which we would be discussing this situation to be evident to others as well. I also didn’t want to stray too far from your original question by assuming too much. So to your first question, my short answer is that I don’t think “Greeks will be able to successfully tap into the strengths of the Arab Spring and gain international support and solidarity.”
For a longer answer, I take a different view and think the “strength of the Arab Spring” lied within the backing it received from western powers rather than any type of popular will. It wasn’t until the west provided military (thousands of airstrikes) and communication support (Internet in a suitcase) along with a healthy dose of espionage and agent provocateurs (NGOs), that the internal rivalries which had previously stopped Egyptians and others from overthrowing their governments on their own finally congealed into a united front. Even now there is plenty of evidence that political factions are re-emerging in Egypt and Libya as they now vie for control of their countries.
I would like to see the Greek people rise up in solidarity against the round after round of austerity measures forced on upon them by what is being called disparagingly the troika, or the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). I don’t however think such a joining together of the Greek people will happen and definitely not in the fashion of the “strengths of the Arab Spring” for several reasons.
First, Greece’s population is spread too far across the political spectrum to congeal into any kind of solidarity movement against the EU troika. Second, the EU has been in control of the highest offices in Greece, namely the office of the prime minister, since Lucas Papademos took control of a national unity government and bowed to the wishes of the EU. Third, the west will not back a popular will uprising against the EU because it would be self-defeating.
This last reason will also be the reason why Greeks will not be able to gain “international support and solidarity” for their eschewing of the austerity measures forced upon them by a compromised government (Papdemos was a ECB vice-president for around 8 years). Rather, the west would like to see post-election violence take hold in Greece because it would give a reason to halt democratic elections because it is obvious the people are going to continue to vote against the EU control over their economy.
In the end, I don’t think it is accurate to make comparisons between the situation in Greece and the Occupy Movement and Arab Spring. Rather, I think it would be more accurate to compare Greece to those African/Central American/South American/Caribbean/South Asia countries that have been forced to privatize various economic sectors to western corporations after defaulting on an IMF or World Bank loan.