“The results of this election are incredibly tight, however, exit poll results suggest a narrow victory for New Democracy. This comes after an incredible campaign of terror against the Greek people, which far surpassed the campaign people in Ireland were subjected to during the referendum campaign. A conscious decision was made by the Greek political, economic and media establishment, in collaboration with their European partners, to portray this election as a referendum on leaving the euro and so frighten people into supporting the right.
“Tonight’s victory will prove to be pyrrhic and short-lived for the capitalist establishment here. Any right wing government that is formed will face such resistance on the streets and in the workplaces, together with a massively strengthened left opposition in the Parliament, that it will not be able to implement the level of austerity demanded by Merkel and Co. Despite New Democracy’s promises of stability, the crisis will deepen and Greece in all likelihood will exit the eurozone. This government will be extremely weak and can fall within a short space of time.
“The key task for the Greek left now is to organise to resist the austerity that is literally destroying society here. The massive votes for Syriza and the left should not go unnoticed either. They demonstrate that the people in Greece have had enough of the old system and simply cannot take any more attacks on their living standards. They also represent the wish for an alternative, socialist society, where people’s needs come before the profits and returns of banks, bondholders and big business.
“Ireland is not quite Greece, but we are heading in that direction with the disastrous austerity policies being imposed. A second so-called ‘bailout’ will falsify all of the government’s promises. The left across Europe will be presented with an enormous opportunity to build a mass movement to defeat austerity and to fight for a fundamentally different society, a socialist Europe organised for the millions, not the multi-millionaires.”
