Greece: A deep and menacing crisis

At the time of writing, [Prime Minister Kyriakos] Mitsotakis is still wavering on the crucial choice of the timing for the next election. Should he proceed to an election immediately, risking the official recording of his party’s losses in political support, while hoping that these losses will be limited and will allow for the formation of a new government of the Right? Should he exhaust the constitutional limits of his mandate, pushing the election towards late spring/early summer of 2023, earning time to do the “business” he had promised to Greek capitalists, hoping that the political situation will (somehow…) improve for his party until then, but taking up the big risk of a painful electoral defeat by prolonging his time in power?

This wavering, which could also be described as a political paralysis, is yet another proof that we are living the beginning of the end for Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a prime minister who until a year ago—enjoying the full support of the establishment— appeared as a long-term leader for the Greek bourgeois forces. In fact, the chances for Mitsotakis to avoid this rapid political decline are based on the weaknesses and contradictions of the opposition—especially SYRIZA (a point to which we shall return later on).

On the roots of this situation lies the social question, the explosive growth of social inequalities as a result of Mitsotakis’ ultra-neoliberal economic and social policies. Austerity in Greece is devastating, pushing the actual income of working-class households below 50% of the corresponding average for member-states of the Eurozone. Inflation hovers around 10% and the Bank of Greece is warning that this could be the case in 2023 and perhaps even 2024, in contrast to the governmental claims that inflation is a “temporary phenomenon.” In the banks, the deposit interest rate remains stuck at 0.04%, which vaporizes any savings that were left to low-income households. A timid suggestion by government officials that banks should raise the deposit rates a bit and provide a minimal protection for poor people in debt and mortgages was met with the furious reaction of the bankers—which led Mitsotakis to retreat and declare that of course his government would never dare thinking about “extreme measures against entrepreneurship.” But of course…

In the belief that readers know (or can imagine) the impact of austerity in a country like Greece, I shall not expand more on this.

Because there is another argument to be made, one with its own political value. The politics of austerity, most of the time, don’t come alone. They are accompanied by an extreme escalation of authoritarianism, corruption, racism and nationalism. The Mitsotakis government is a typical example of this repulsive mix.

For some time now, politics are shaken by the surveillance scandal. It is now proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the Prime Minister’s Office had established an autonomous “center” that oversaw the surveillance of political enemies, even friends and collaborators of Mitsotakis, as well as some thousands of citizens on an annual basis. The surveillance was undertaken by the National Intelligence Service (EYP), the notorious state agency in charge of counterintelligence and counter-terrorism. As a devoted neoliberal, Mitsotakis took care to enable an effective “partnership” of EYP with private “security” companies and with international companies that provide spyware like Predator. Such spyware expand the scope of surveillance, as they can record (in addition to written and verbal communications) images from the personal moments of the targeted person, providing the potential for blackmails. It is no surprise that the company that provides Predator is led by former (?) agents of Israeli Secret Services and is based in the State of Israel. Among the victims of surveillance—the ones published until now—we find: PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis, leading members and former ministers of SYRIZA, the European MP GiorgosKyrtsos, who was expelled from New Democracy after clashing with Mitsotakis, the leaders of other fractions of the right-wing party, the Minister of Foreign Relations Nikos Dendias, the army chief of staff K. Floros, as well as well-known and ambitious oligarchs, investigative journalists and others.

The revelation that the Minister of Foreign Relations and the head of the Army are monitored by a “partnership” of state agencies and the (foreign-based) private sector should be enough to rock even a government of the Right—as this political current, in its contemporary (after the fall of the dictatorship in 1974) refoundation, referred to the strong “sovereigntist” tradition of party-leader Konstantinos Karamanlis [whose political career spanned much of the second half of the twentieth century).

For the Left, the problem is obviously wider than that: the public admission that EYP is systematically surveilling over 16,000 people per year serves as proof for a wider problem of democratic deficit. Even the “Independent Authority” for Communications Security Management found that certain key protective provisions of the Constitution have obviously been violated.

The defensive strategy of the government is cynical: Mitsotakissimply repeats that he “didn’t know” about the surveillances, and he counter-attacks against the opposition by promoting the argument that counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism are indispensable in the world of contemporary politics. The efforts of SYRIZA and PASOK to deal with this scandal by respecting the framework set by the state institutions—meaning by choosing to confront Mitsotakis without confronting EYP—has proven to be, until now, an important helping hand to the endurance of the governmental camp.

The surveillances case is revealing for the overall direction of the government and its doctrine about the so-called “executive state.” The government that pursues privatization, shrinks and deregulates employment in the public sector, leads the public hospitalsto the verge of collapse, is the one that heavily invests in the reinforcement and the “modernization” of state repressive forces. When MitsotakisSenior (the father) was prime minister (1989-1993), he had used an emblematic expression while appealing to police officers: “You are the State!” This expression sums up the current trajectory of Kyriakos Mitsotakis (the son).

In mid-December, Kostas Fragoulis, a 16-year old Roma, left a gas station without paying the 20 euros for the petrol he had bought. A group of Police Special Forces chased him and—after they had managed to immobilize him—they murdered him with two shots in the head. It was the second police murder of a young Romani person in a year. The murder provoked riots in Roma camps and angry protests of the radical Left in many cities. Despite the intense mobilizations, the murderer cop was released (confined in his home) until his trial (someday…) takes place. The minister in charge of the police declared that he will not tolerate any efforts to cultivate “phobic syndromes” among the ranks of police officers. In order to leave no doubt about governmental priorities, on the night that the death of K. Fragoulis was officially announced, while the Romani camps were burning in anger, Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced an extra bonus of 600 euros to each cop for Christmas! This policy of ruthless and provocative support for the repressive state apparatus is a unanimous choice of the ruling class: the “message” by the regime was so clear that it led SYRIZA and even the Communist Party to vote in parliament in favor of the financial support to police forces!

The fortification of the “executive state” against all the forces from below (workers, students, women fighting against sexism, immigrants and refugees, Roma people, etc.) is not combined with any effectiveness in the issues of corruption. At the time of writing, three major trials are in progress, all of them related to a network that journalists describe as “Greek Police Mafia.” They concern the persecution of high-ranking officials who led a network that is accused for drug trafficking, providing paid “protection” to illegal brothels, prostitution of adolescents, raping and forcing girls to prostitution and four murders of competitors in the organized crime milieu. It is no surprise that among the accused, we find mid-ranking politicians of the ruling party, people of the Church, supporters of “law and order” and—of course—racist bigots. All these cases were overshadowed in the Press by the outbreak of the “Qatar-Gate” scandal and the arrest of “Socialist” European MP Eva Kaili.

The arrest of Eva Kaili illustrates the corruption in the organs of the European Union, and without a doubt it will have an impact on a broader European level, but this is beyond the scope of this article. Here, it is useful to note certain elements about the relation between this case and the overall choices made by the Greek State, as well as the impact that Kaili’s arrest will have in Greek politics.

Kaili’s “privileged” relation with Qatar was not an isolated, personal choice. Under Mitsotakis, the Greek state has signed a “strategic partnership” agreement with the United Arab Emirates, which provides for “mutual contributions” in questions of defense, security, threats to sovereignty, etc. The agreement stipulates exchanges of weaponry and coordination between the armed forces and the forces of repression. Most recently, Mitsotakis and the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman met in Athens and signed a “strategic agreement” between Greece and Saudi Arabia. In addition to questions of defense and security, the agreement provides for co-operation in the fields of energy and pipelines in the Eastern Mediterranean. What’s more, in the not-so-innocent field of football, Greece, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are planning a joint bid to co-host the World Cup of 2030… This is the overall framework in which Eva Kaili was acting, with certain enthusiasm and with no disregard to personal material benefit.

Kaili is a typical representative of the “extreme center”, belonging to the degenerated social-democracy in its social-liberal era. In 2015, she was one of the most extreme proponents of the “anti-Left” front, as member of the current of PASOK that promoted a strategic alliance with the Right-wing in order to face the threat of major working-class struggles. Later on, she allied with Andreas Loverdos, the candidate for PASOK’s leadership who stood for an alliance with Kyriakos Mitsotakis—a position which led to his defeat by Nikos Androulakis in the party election. It was an open secret that in the coming elections, Eva Kaili would probably be a “shiny jewel” in the electoral lists of the Right-wing party.

Combined with the revelation that Nikos Androulakis was under surveillance, the arrest of Eva Kaili (and the possibility that new revelations might expand in her collaboration with historical members of New Democracy like former Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos) further diminish whatever chances were left—after the election of Androulakis as leader of PASOK—for a governmental alliance between ND and PASOK after the next elections. This weakness in the field of potential allies is an important political problem for Mitsotakis.

The right-wing government, led by the ultra-neoliberal Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has proven itself as a really dangerous and reactionary government, which functions as a “war machine” for capital in all the aspects of its policy.

Its political attrition, the emergence of its weaknesses, the hard time it faces in convincing that it can eventually retain control of the political and electoral contests, have created doubts in the ranks of the ruling class, concerning the form of future governments. This is directly reflected in the public debate in the Mainstream Press around the potential for governments that are based on a “wider consensus”. It is also reflected indirectly by the fact that among the targets that were surveilled by EYP there were some hyper-active oligarchs—an indication that Mitsotakis is worried about the support he has in the ruling class.

But the biggest threat for Mitsotakis is an escalation of activity from below. In the general strike on the 9^th of November, and in the demonstrations for the anniversary of the anti-dictatorship revolt of November 1973, the massive participation was the largest after our political defeat in 2015 and the political victory or the Right in 2019. The resilience of student protests against the establishment of a university police on campus, the antiracist and antifascist activity, the women’s struggle against sexism, etc. add to this point. This reinforcement of struggles is not without a political impact.

When Tsipras agreed with Mitsotakis in Parliament about the economic bonus to the police forces, hundreds of members of SYRIZA reacted with a public statement titled “Not in our name!” When the Communist Party voted along with SYRIZA for this provocative benefit to cops, the turmoil even among its ranks was such that—for the first time in the contemporary history of the party—the general secretary, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, was forced to a public self-criticism in parliament.

The overthrow of this government is objectively possible. But, in the end, its fate will be determined by the political orientation and operation of the left-wing opposition and—mostly!—by the potential of the resistance movement from below to intervene, leaving Kyriakos Mitsotakiswith no room to regroup.