http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/28/us-greece-election-suicide-idUSBRE83R08N20120428
http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/1/55218
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/euroblown-greece-exclusive-secret-poll-reveals-pasok-nd-collapse/
The Slog has received details of two secret opinion polls in Greece, both of which suggest that, as young voters finally make their minds up, PASOK in particular has seen a major fall in its share of the vote. There are rumors in Athens itself that at least one poll has also been conducted by EU officials working out of the Troika offices there.
One national poll – allegedly commissioned by Brussels – shows the New Democracy Party of Antonis Samaras holding onto its share of the vote, while Pasok has dropped from 19.8% to 15.5%. The Nationalist schism Golden Dawn was also seen to have enoyed a slight increase in popularity. If Pasok leader Venizelos has had sight of this poll, it would explain his desperate call, earlier in the week, for a ‘Grand’ Coalition….naturally, including him. In fact, I’m told that both main Party leaders know they are unlikely (based on the current numbers) to make up a majority of the votes cast. (The survey was leaked by a foreign Embassy in Athens, widely though to be Spain’s).
The situation now becomes intriguing. For starters, there is a clear majority here against the bailout terms. If one adds on Antonis Samaras’s obvious doubts about it, the Troika is seen to have the support of just one in eight voters. Brussels will thus be forced to accept that its bailout scheme, timings and terms are unacceptable to the vast majority of Greeks. Based on their track-record, this won’t worry them for more than a second or two, but if made clear enough to the eurozone’s more apathetic voters, it might serve to point out what they (and that includes the UK) might well be in for one day.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_28/04/2012_439762
No new taxes in June, no horizontal cuts to salaries and pensions, and a gradual lifting of a number of taxes were some of the promises PASOK president Evangelos Venizelos handed out on Saturday noon at the presentation of his party’s election program in Athens.
Speaking at the Theodoros Karatzas auditorium of the National Bank in front of a select audience, Venizelos proposed a change to the national productive model, “that in the last 38 years has relied on consumption and is the main cause for the crisis we are undergoing.”
He said the new model starts with the return to the countryside, as “the new agricultural policy constitutes a huge pool for new jobs.” The model also includes the return of Greek capital from abroad and reaches up to the new dynamic sectors of technology.
Among his proposals were the gradual withdrawal of the solidarity tax (currently amounting to 1 to 4 percent of income), that will help rekindle growth, while the special property tax paid through the electricity bills will be merged with other property taxes into one.
Growth will also be spurred by privatizations and new infrastructure projects, the investment in energy that could exceed 30 billion euros, and the return of value-added tax on food catering to its previous level (13 percent from 23 percent today).
“This is the first time we can talk of a tax system to be stable for the next 10 years. It will require the broadest possible party consensus, though. It runs counter to historical knowledge to promise cuts to tax rates,” he said as an answer to New Democracy’s stated intention to bring corporate tax down to 15 percent. He also promised to combat tax distortions, without specifying.
Venizelos even proposed the institutionalization of what he branded “Poor Man’s Inflation”, that is a new index for the prices of every-day products required by families with income problems.
The former Finance Minister chose to speak only about financial issues, avoiding any mention of other policy domains, but did say that the best option would be for a coalition government of the center-left.
“No one can achieve it on his own, as our experience has recently shown. One can see now whether the time of single-party governments is gone or not.” He added that the new government should have just 14 ministries, including a Merchant Marine Ministry -- that PASOK abolished in 2009 -- and no more than 10 deputy ministers. General secretaries in ministries should be permanent, he said.
(Reuters) - On Monday, a 38-year-old geology lecturer hanged himself from a lamp post in Athens and on the same day a 35-year-old priest jumped to his death off his balcony in northern Greece. On Wednesday, a 23-year-old student shot himself in the head.
In a country that has had one of the lowest suicide rates in the world, a surge in the number of suicides in the wake of an economic crisis has shocked and gripped the Mediterranean nation - and its media - before a May 6 election.
The especially grisly death of pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, who shot himself in the head on a central Athens square because of poverty brought on by the crisis that has put millions out of work, was by far the most dramatic.
Before shooting himself during morning rush hour on April 4 on Syntagma Square across from the Greek parliament building, the 77-year-old pensioner took a moment to jot down a note.
"I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life so I don't find myself fishing through garbage cans for sustenance," wrote Christoulas, who has since become a national symbol of the austerity-induced pain that is squeezing millions.
Greek media have since reported similar suicides almost daily, worsening a sense of gloom going into next week's election, called after Prime Minister Lucas Papademos's interim government completed its mandate to secure a new rescue deal from foreign creditors by cutting spending further.
Some medical experts say this form of political suicide is a reflection of the growing despair and sense of helplessness many feel. But others warn the media may be amplifying the crisis mood with its coverage and numbers may only be up slightly.
"The crisis has triggered a growing sense of guilt, a loss of self-esteem and humiliation for many Greeks," Nikos Sideris, a leading psychoanalyst and author in Athens, told Reuters.
"Greek people don't want to be a burden to anyone and there's this growing sense of helplessness. Some develop an attitude of self-hatred and that leads to self-destruction. That's what's behind the increase in suicide and attempted suicide. We're seeing a whole new category: political suicides."
Police said the geology lecturer, Nikos Polyvos, who hanged himself, was distraught because a teaching job offer had been blocked due to a blanket hiring freeze in the public sector.
NATION IN SHOCK
Experts say the numbers are relatively low - less than about 600 per year. But increases in suicides, attempted suicides, the use of anti-depressant medication and the need for psychiatric care are causing alarm in a nation unaccustomed to the problems.
Before the financial crisis began wreaking havoc in 2009, Greece had one of the lowest suicide rates in the world - 2.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. There was a 40 percent rise in suicides in the first half of 2010, according to the Health Ministry.
There are no reliable statistics on 2011 but experts say Greece's suicide rate has probably doubled to about 5 per 100,000. That is still far below levels of 34 per 100,000 seen in Finland or 9 per 100,000 in Germany. Attempted suicides and demand for psychiatric help has risen as Greece struggles to cope with the worst economic crisis since World War Two.
Nikiforos Angelopoulos, a professor of psychiatry, has a busy psychotherapy practice in an upmarket Athens neighborhood. He said the crisis has exacerbated the problems for some already less stable people and estimates that about five percent of his patients have developed problems due to the crisis.
"We're a nation in shock," he said, even though he suspected that it was the media coverage of suicides that had increased dramatically rather than the actual numbers of suicides. He nevertheless says the crisis is behind a notable rise in mental health problems in Greece.
"I had one patient who came in with a severe depression - he owns a furniture making company that got into financial trouble and he had to lay off 20 of his 100 workers," he said. "He couldn't sleep and couldn't eat because of that. He said his good business was being ruined and he couldn't cope anymore."
The furniture maker spent four months in therapy and was also helped by anti-depressants, Angelopoulos said.
"He's better now. He realized what happened just happened. But there are many others who are unstable or psychotic to begin with and the crisis is increasing their anxiety and insecurity."
Angelopoulos, 60, has also suffered himself because about 20 percent of his patients can no longer afford his 100 euro ($130) per hour sessions. Some have asked for a half-price discount while others tell him they simply can't afford to pay anything.
"I never turn people away," he said. "If a patient says to me 'I have no money', I couldn't tell them to go away. I tell them okay you don't have to pay now but remember me later."
HAPPY GREEKS?
There are several possible explanations for Greece's low suicide rate that go beyond the fact that the country has an abundance of sunshine and balmy weather.
To avoid stigmatizing their families, some suicidal Greeks deliberately crash their cars, which police often charitably report as accidents. Families often try to cover up a suicide so their loved ones can be buried because the Greek Orthodox church refuses to officiate at burials of people who commit suicide.
Another important factor behind the low suicide rate is that Greeks have extremely close knit families as well as a highly communicative and expressive culture.
"Greece is a country where everyone will talk to you," said Sideris, the Athens psychoanalyst. "You'll always find someone to share your suffering with and someone's always there to help.
"It's not only the good weather. It's the powerful network of support that has made the suicide rate in Greece so low. It's still there but this crisis is still too much for some people."
Many Greeks have also not lost their sense of humor.
Dimitris Nikolopoulos, a 37-year-old salesman, laughed at the idea that the suicide rate was so low because Greeks are well-adjusted and a generally happy people.
"Greeks used to be very happy people because we were living off money that didn't belong to us," he said with a wry smile. "But sometimes you have to face reality. It wasn't our money."
and....
http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/1/55218
| Press watch, April 28 | |||||
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I’ll tell you something. Looking at the front pages of the Saturday press, it’s kind of difficult to make out who is getting more excited about the elections next Sunday, the political parties that are scheduled to do battle, or the newspapers.
Most of them are no longer sitting on the fence about it, have clearly picked a side and are getting all hot under the collar, although that was the case last week as well. I wonder if anyone has thought of taking blood pressure readings lately. Heaven help us with what’s going to be splashed on the front pages next Saturday and Sunday.
To Ethnos starts with a booming “Samaras avoiding battle to the end”, referring to the New Democracy head once again refusing the debate mating call sent out by the Evangelos Venizelos, but also spares some room for last week’s favorite Vicky Stamati. The aloof-by-default wife of disgraced minister Akis Tsochadzopoulos, is heading for the slammer as well it was decided and what a re-union they’re bound to have. Father, daughter and second wife. Two more and they’ll be fielding a team for the in-jail basketball league.
Ta Nea are looking into the Samaras turn towards a more strict right-wing political line, but its Dimitris Hadzopoulos’ sketch that grabs all the front page limelight, playing on the fact that Syriza head Alexis Tsipras is getting rather cozy with right-wing shout-a-lot Panos Kamenos and his Independent Greeks. The sketch depicts a bridge with Hitler and Stalin on either end as the pillars and two individuals walking across it. The lancing joke that sets it of, reads: “Why is Tsipras working with Kamenos such a shock? If Stalin was missing 5 or 6 hairs from his moustache, would Hitler not give him a few?”
An old election time nugget rears its ugly head on Press Time’s front page, with the newspaper revealing that a multitude of Greek citizenship papers have been fast tracked through the state system in order to create a new army of easily-manipulated voters. If the “easily-manipulated” tag seems a bit harsh, consider how difficult it is for most immigrants to get Greek citizenship papers and then weigh that against the ease with which you can achieve such a goal near election time. Strangely, it is a topic of discussion at nearly every election in the past fifteen years or so and strangely it is never investigated. One could hardly blame an immigrant for voting for those that made his life easier. As sinister as the motives behind this welcome help may be.
The Thessaloniki based Aggelioforos breaks up the election talk with a depressing statistic concerning the people using soup kitchens in Thessaloniki and how dramatically this number has exploded in less than two full years. The paper shows that in December of 2010, 1387 people were using soup kitchens to get much needed sustenance, a figure that has shot upward to 4178 for April of 2012. Reading this and then looking at the smiling face of Evangelos Venizelos in a Pasok election advertisement, that sits directly below, really makes you wonder about the true point of the May 6 elections.
Dimokratia gets us back to election speak and takes square aim at Evangelos Venizelos who as the title reads is “embracing George Papandreou”. The tag that precedes it is even more aggressive, saying that “the two men responsible for Greece’s destruction appeared together, in a Patras rally”. Just to the left of the main story a small, but highly worrying statement by Angela Merkel. “Dream on! Austerity measures will not let up”. Thanks for that Angela.
I Apopsi puts a lid on all of it for today, running with an alarmingly large picture of Antonis Samaras on its front page, and saying that he is “entering the final stretch with momentum”. This momentum is apparently due to his plans for the economy and the immigration issue, while Venizelos, making a small cameo appearance below that, is “playing his last hand to bring Pasok together”.
Bring on election weekend then. And like I said, heaven help us.
and....
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http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/euroblown-greece-exclusive-secret-poll-reveals-pasok-nd-collapse/
EUROBLOWN: GREECE EXCLUSIVE – SECRET POLL REVEALS PASOK, ND COLLAPSE
Anti-Troika swing among young voters
The Slog has received details of two secret opinion polls in Greece, both of which suggest that, as young voters finally make their minds up, PASOK in particular has seen a major fall in its share of the vote. There are rumors in Athens itself that at least one poll has also been conducted by EU officials working out of the Troika offices there.
As The Slog predicted recently, Antonis Samaras of New Democracy has his sights on a coalition without the Pasok Party of Evangelo Venizelos. Not only does Samaras believe that the Pasok leader is too unpopular to be anything other than a liability, he also feels that Venizelos would block any attempt to renege on the Brussels bailout Accord signed in March….and leak Government intentions to the Troika.
Samaras is now openly reaching out to Right-wing voters who are leaving his Conservative party ahead of the May 6 elections, observes the Greek Reporter. While that’s true, in private he is also keen to reach out the the Far Right’s leaders, and put the slavishly pro-bailout Pasok out of power. To do so, Samaras yesterday focused on his Rightist credentials, saying he would get tough on crime, repeal laws giving citizenship to second generation immigrants born in Greece, and allow police to use water cannons to break up protests. Nationalism is a rapidly growing political force in Greece – especially among the country’s youth.Older traditional voters seem to have made up their minds to vote either ND or Pasok early on, largely ignoring the growing number of fringe Parties. But in the last eight days, there is polling evidence (it cannot be published in Greece as it is after the two-week pre-Election deadline) that not only are young voters firming up their intentions, a sizeable minority are ignoring the more pro-EU mainstream Parties.
One national poll – allegedly commissioned by Brussels – shows the New Democracy Party of Antonis Samaras holding onto its share of the vote, while Pasok has dropped from 19.8% to 15.5%. The Nationalist schism Golden Dawn was also seen to have enoyed a slight increase in popularity. If Pasok leader Venizelos has had sight of this poll, it would explain his desperate call, earlier in the week, for a ‘Grand’ Coalition….naturally, including him. In fact, I’m told that both main Party leaders know they are unlikely (based on the current numbers) to make up a majority of the votes cast. (The survey was leaked by a foreign Embassy in Athens, widely though to be Spain’s).
But a new poll revealed exclusively here by The Slog shows that, in the key voting areas in and around Athens – where the percentage youth demographic is higher - the mainstream Party share of vote is collapsing.
The area polled is enormous, and electorally important: about 1.5m electors, running across 34 municipalities and accounting for roughly 42 seats in the Greek Parliament. The topline results are as follows:
New Democracy 14% (Conservative)
PASOK 12% (Socialist)
Independent Greeks 11% (Hard Right)
SYRIZA 11% (Hard Left)
KKE 9% (Communist)
Golden Dawn 9% (Neo-Nazi)
Democratic Left 8%
With the support of less than 3 in 10 of voters, there is no way that the pro-bailout Coalition could have any validity. But equally, based on this study it looks as though neither the Left (32%) nor the Right (34%) could put a government together either.
There are, however, three other important factors. First, the Leftist Parties are violently opposed to the bailout terms and thus could never join in a Pasok Coalition without catastrophic loss of face. Second, as the above stats show, 28% of voters (mainly young) are still undecided – although many may abstain. And last but not least, the minority Parties themselves are now reaching out right across the Left-Right spectrum.
Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Radical Left SYRIZA group, yesterday (Friday) said his Party would be prepared to join forces with the newly-formed nationalist Independent Greeks led by Panos Kammenos. This in turn firmed up a more general statement earlier that a left-wing alliance “would see votes for IG as support for, or at least tolerance of, such an anti-bailout formation.
The situation now becomes intriguing. For starters, there is a clear majority here against the bailout terms. If one adds on Antonis Samaras’s obvious doubts about it, the Troika is seen to have the support of just one in eight voters. Brussels will thus be forced to accept that its bailout scheme, timings and terms are unacceptable to the vast majority of Greeks. Based on their track-record, this won’t worry them for more than a second or two, but if made clear enough to the eurozone’s more apathetic voters, it might serve to point out what they (and that includes the UK) might well be in for one day.
Further, if we work on the assumption – not at all outlandish – that a quarter of the remaining 28% abstain, a quarter vote for the bailout Parties, and half vote for the minority groupings, that would take the anti-bailout protest to 42% Left and 42% Right. Pasok would be unacceptable to both wings of the opposition to Troika plans, so it would take only SYRIZA to join with Independent Greeks andNew Democracy to form a majority anti-Brussels coalition Government.
How welcome would that be to the social democrat fluffies and control freaks of the EU? Not at all. More to the point, it would be an unmitigated disaster for the ECB and French banks; the beginning of the end, in fact, of the euro – were the outcome to emerge just as the markets give up on Spain….as they assuredly will do sooner rather than later.
As Dan Hannan would probably say, “That’s another fine mess the EU control freaks have got us into”. But bearing in mind the revelations discussed throughout this week here, one wonders what illiberal, anti-democratic trick they will now dream up to declare the vote null and void?
But for the Americans – a different story? This is, after all, exactly the outcome they wanted in March. But would they still want it in May, with Mario Draghi trying in vain to wrestle a Spanish meltdown to the ground? At the moment I have no idea. But I’d be willing to bet Lloyd Blankfein does.
lies from Venlzelos
Venizelos pledges no more taxes in June
  |
Speaking at the Theodoros Karatzas auditorium of the National Bank in front of a select audience, Venizelos proposed a change to the national productive model, “that in the last 38 years has relied on consumption and is the main cause for the crisis we are undergoing.”
He said the new model starts with the return to the countryside, as “the new agricultural policy constitutes a huge pool for new jobs.” The model also includes the return of Greek capital from abroad and reaches up to the new dynamic sectors of technology.
Among his proposals were the gradual withdrawal of the solidarity tax (currently amounting to 1 to 4 percent of income), that will help rekindle growth, while the special property tax paid through the electricity bills will be merged with other property taxes into one.
Growth will also be spurred by privatizations and new infrastructure projects, the investment in energy that could exceed 30 billion euros, and the return of value-added tax on food catering to its previous level (13 percent from 23 percent today).
“This is the first time we can talk of a tax system to be stable for the next 10 years. It will require the broadest possible party consensus, though. It runs counter to historical knowledge to promise cuts to tax rates,” he said as an answer to New Democracy’s stated intention to bring corporate tax down to 15 percent. He also promised to combat tax distortions, without specifying.
Venizelos even proposed the institutionalization of what he branded “Poor Man’s Inflation”, that is a new index for the prices of every-day products required by families with income problems.
The former Finance Minister chose to speak only about financial issues, avoiding any mention of other policy domains, but did say that the best option would be for a coalition government of the center-left.
“No one can achieve it on his own, as our experience has recently shown. One can see now whether the time of single-party governments is gone or not.” He added that the new government should have just 14 ministries, including a Merchant Marine Ministry -- that PASOK abolished in 2009 -- and no more than 10 deputy ministers. General secretaries in ministries should be permanent, he said.
| Earlier in the day in an interview on Mega Channel, Venizelos said there should first be an agreement on the program of the next coalition government and then talk about the name of the next prime minister. However he stressed that the next premier would have to be a politician and not a technocrat. |
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