Elections in Greece: Joining Euro with Simitis

The general elections in Greece have confirmed the government of Costas Simitis. The prime minister's Socialist party PASOK has won an absolute majority, but the Conservative opposition ND has come a lot closer. Under Simitis' leadership Greece has made large progress in many fields. In foreign affairs the relations with Turkey and Macedonia have improved and the country has finally learnt to keep at distance its traditional ally Serbia. Concerning the economy inflation and debt have been reduced, growth has been steady and the stock market has soared. Simitis has reached these results focussing all efforts on the country´s struggle for joining the euro zone, an ambition that could soon be accomplished. Thanks to the prime minister's sober and steady style Greek democracy has finally left behind large part of the embarrassing scandals and muck that characterized the government of his predecessor Andreas Papandreou. Democracy has returned to where it started and it starts looking quite respectable.

A premium for PASOK

In the end the race was quite close for the man who can fairly be called the leader of the best government in the history of Greek modern democracy. In the elections of 9th April the Socialist party PASOK led by prime minister Costas Simitis has conquered 43,8% of votes (+2,3%), but the Conservative opposition of New Democracy has come as close as 1,1% behind, reaching a consensus of 42,7% (+4,6%). Thanks to the distortions of the electoral system (a proportional rule with a 3%-hurdle and a bonus of seats for the winning party) PASOK has though reached an absolute majority of 158 seats (-3) in the 300 member parliament.

New Democracy, whose leader Costas Karamanlis had formed a quite attractive electoral alliance with the small Liberal Party led by former economy minister Stefanos Manos, has conquered 125 seats (+22). Of the minor forces only the two parties of the left have returned into parliament. The orthodox Communists of KKE have conquered 5,5% of consensus (-0,1%), remaining stable with 11 seats. Synaspismos, a coalition of Euro-Communists and Greens, has fallen to 3,2% (-1,9%) conquering 6 seats (-4), while the Social Democrats of DIKKI have dropped to 2,7% (-1,7%), thus losing all their seats (-9).

Dynasties of democracy

The history of Greek democracy in the 20th century has been dominated by a few father figures who have founded some real political dynasties: the families Papandreou and Karamanlis. Georgios Papandreou was prime minister 1944-1945 and 1963-1965, his son Andreas Papandreou dominated Greek politics as leader of PASOK from 1981 to his death in 1996. Most of this time he was also prime minister, although he sometimes seemed a bit distracted by his young wife Dimitra ("Mimi"), a former hostess whose scandalous conduct often got more of the headlines than her husbands political performance. His son Georgios II is now serving as foreign minister under Simitis and he has best chances to become one day prime minister himself.

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