13) KKE ON THE GREEK ELECTION RESULTS

Statement by Dimitris Koutsoumpas, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) on the Sept. 20 election results.

            The KKE salutes the hundreds of thousands of people who honoured it with their votes. All those men and women who ignored the extortion, the dilemmas, overcame hesitations and various reservations in order to join forces with the KKE.

            The KKE will utilize its political, electoral and parliamentary strength to work for the comprehensive regroupment and strengthening of the labour-people’s movement, for the construction of a great social, people’s alliance.

            The KKE is the only force whose struggle against the memoranda is at the same time a consistent struggle against the capitalist system itself, the system that also creates the predatory alliances which only bring new torments for the people, the country and the youth.

            The KKE, as always, will stand shoulder to shoulder with our people, consistently against any government that is ready to implement the barbaric memorandum.

            The correlation of forces in parliament will in any case produce a coalition government. Its programmatic statements are already ready: the implementation of the 3^rd memorandum. Capital, its political and governmental personnel, together with the Troika, wants to win the people’s consent in order to implement the barbaric measures without resistance. They want a harmless, fake opposition so that its hands are free to wage the anti-people offensive.

            The election results as a whole are negative for the workers, the employees, the urban and rural self-employed, the youth, the pensioners.

            The KKE will consistently and continually struggle inside Parliament and inside the people’s movement in order to isolate the Nazi monstrosity, Golden Dawn.

            There needs to be a stronger KKE everywhere, in the workplaces, in the places of education, the popular neighbourhoods, in the places where the heart of our struggling and sorely tested people truly beats.

            In the final count, the KKE received 5.55% (301,629 votes), retaining its 15 seats in the parliament. The SYRIZA party led by Alex Tsipras finished first with 35.46%, winning 145 seats (including 50 seats for taking the largest vote percentage), and will continue to govern with its right-wing ally, the ANEL (“Independent Greeks”), which won 3.66% and 10 seats. The main big business party, New Democracy, won 28% and 75 seats; the neo-nazi Golden Dawn won 6.99% and 18 seats; the coalition of PASOK-DIMAR right-wing social democratic parties won 6.33% and 17 seats (a gain of four from PASOK’s previous total); “The River” centrist party won 4.06% and 11 seats (a loss of six); and the Union of Centrists won 3.36%, passing the 3% barrier to enter parliament with nine seats. The Popular Unity party (LAE), formed by MPs who left SYRIZA after Tsipras surrendered in July to the most recent EU memorandum, received 2.86% (155,240 votes), not enough to elect any MPs.

(The above article is from the October 1-15, 2015, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)