Skip to main content

Greece: Fears for rigged elections!

Far-Right threats on the perspective of a Leftist government

globinfo freexchange

It is proven historically that when the big capital feels that its sovereignty is threatened mobilize its far-Right mechanisms. After the recent revelations for tragicomic secret meetings a few days before the national elections (http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2015/01/preparing-new-gladio-for-left-in-greece.html), new threats came publicly from the far-Right component of the neoliberal Right.

From enikos.gr:

Greek opposition parties on Monday slammed outgoing health minister and New Democracy candidate Makis Voridis after he said his party would do "whatever it takes" to prevent Syriza from winning the general elections on Sunday.

Speaking at a small gathering in Aspropyrgos on Sunday, Voridis made reference to the 1946-49 Greek Civil War, fought by pro-government and pro-royalist forces against Communist rebels, in his opening remarks.

"Our generation will not hand over the country," he said. "We will do whatever it takes. We will defend with our votes on Sunday what our grandfathers defended bravely with arms."

Voridis, who joined New Democracy in 2012 after leaving nationalist LAOS, went on to give his interpretation of the key issue at stake on January 25.

"The meaning of the confrontation next Sunday, the meaning of the elections - don’t kid yourselves: You’re not choosing a party or an economic programme. Next Sunday is a major ideological clash. It is a clash between two worlds. The clash is between the values of the homeland, religion and family, which we represent, and levelling everything, which the Left represents."

Syriza spokesman Panos Skourletis accused Voridis of making "intolerant, civil-war statements that have no precedent in the post-junta era," and called on Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to explain himself.

Skourletis said the health minister showed "the real face of Samaras’ party saying he will do 'whatever it takes' not to respect the vote of the Greek people” while adopting "slogans from the seven-year Junta."

The Democratic Left (DIMAR) also criticised Voridis for "trying to return political life to times that Greeks would prefer to forget" and added that "democracy and the popular verdict cannot be threatened or blackmailed."


What does "We will do whatever it takes." mean? Especially when it comes from far-Right Voridis? A comment picked from discussions in various websites, depicts probably the concerns of many in Greece, a few days before the elections:

[ WHAT WILL THE LEFT DO IN CASE OF RIGGED ELECTIONS?

... the state-parastate said: "We will do whatever it takes."

Historically, in Greece this has been "applied" by the (far)Right "raiders" by three ways listed below, starting from the most moderate:

a) Setting up the elections

b) Setting up and Violence

c) Dictatorship

Taking the most moderate scenario, Samaras wins by only a few votes in rigged elections (like Bush in Florida). In that case, what will SYRIZA do? Should accept the result? May I remind that we go to elections under the UNPRECEDENTED situation, which is WITHOUT an intermediate government, but also, the system of the electronic recording of the results will be conducted by a private company! ]

A short background of Voridis to understand someone the situation better. From the Press Project:

Makis Voridis, born in 1964, has been politically active for his entire adult life and the vast majority of his political career has been with groups on the extreme far right. Now he is Greece’s newest Health Minister and one of the most prominent supporters of the reform agenda.

As a high school student at Athens College (a private school and alma mater of many of the country’s business and political elite), he had leadership positions in nationalist student groups. According to a Haaretz article written by another former alumnus of the school, during his time there Voridis had formed a fascist group called ‘Free pupils’ which painted swastikas on the walls and whose members greeted each other saying ‘Heil Hitler’.

A lawyer by trade he graduated Athens University Law School in 1990. As a student Voridis is reported to have formed another fascist group and taken part in street brawls, pursuing and attacking leftist groups. Photos from this period appear to show an axe-wielding Voridis patrolling the streets. Following his graduation he was appointed leader of the youth wing of EPEN - a far-right party founded a year earlier by the jailed leader of the 1967 military coup, Giorgos Papadopoulos - succeeding Nikos Michaloliakos who went on to found the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn which he leads to this day.


A short historical background of the the elections of 1961 that became known in the Greek political history as the "elections of violence and fraud". The founder of Samaras' New Democracy, Constantine Karamanlis, won the elections. From wikipedia:

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 29 October 1961. The result was a third consecutive victory for Constantine Karamanlis and his National Radical Union party, which won 176 of the 300 seats in Parliament. Nevertheless, the leader of the newly formed Center Union (an alliance of all liberal and centrist parties), Georgios Papandreou and the leaders of the left-wing Pandemocratic Agrarian Front questioned the legality of the results, claiming that Karamanlis, the army and the palace rigged the vote. Papandreou announced an 'uncompromising struggle' (ανένδοτος αγών) against Karamanlis' government, demanding new elections. Karamanlis denied all the allegations of Papandreou, although the opposition parties insisted in them. Eventually, the elections of 1961 became known in the Greek political history as the 'elections of violence and fraud' (εκλογές της βίας και νοθείας).” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_legislative_election,_1961)

It would be worth to remind that after the assassination of Pavlos Fyssas, the systemic establishment "fired some warning shots":

Despite the humorous comments that flooded twitter, on rumors of a coup d'etat due to the "calling" of Greek army reservists this Saturday, the threat is real and the message is clear: either you will accept our neoliberal dictatorship with the mask of a pseudo-democracy and what this means (dissolving welfare state, dissolving labor rights, new cuts in wages and pensions, massive lay-offs and privatizations), or, you will get a military one, with the neo-nazis acting uncontrolled among you!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

F-35s & AI Chips: How MBS Outplayed Washington & Beijing

GVS Deep Dive  Saudi Arabia just secured two of the most powerful assets in modern geopolitics: the U.S. F-35 stealth fighter and tens of thousands of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips. Washington hoped this would pull Riyadh firmly back into the American orbit. But the outcome is something neither side fully expected: Mohammad bin Salman outplayed both Washington and Beijing — and used the great-power rivalry to his advantage.

Greece, Palestine & Zionism: FPTV Reports from Athens

Free Palestine TV   Laith Marouf & Rabih Ghannam travel to Athens, Greece, and take a walking tour with local activists Evan Katsounis and Maria Kosmidi, to discover the rich history of anti-Zionist and anti-Fascist actions in the city, as well as the current Zionist incursion into the property sector and the counter actions directed at the presence of these War Criminals on the streets of the city. 

Trump BLEW IT: Israel, Candace Owens & Epstein BURY MAGA (But Not How You Think)

Danny Haiphong   Trump has bent the knee to Israel for the last time. Patrick Henningsen exposes his horrid record and all the elements that has led to his rapidly coming collapse. 

Trump RUINED: Israel First Lies & Economic Freefall Just ENDED MAGA

Danny Haiphong   Tucker Carlson isn't the only journalist breaking with Trump. In this video, Patrick Henningsen goes scorched earth on Trump's massive betrayal of what he promised his "MAGA" base and blows the lid off how his massive lies serve as a cover up for a much bigger structural problem in America's 'Israel First' political system, what Tucker and major voices in elite MAGA won't tell you.  

Varoufakis: IT technologies will overthrow Capitalism

globinfo freexchange The former Greek Minister of Finance, Yanis Varoufakis, ended his recent speech on the Future of Capitalism, at the New School, New York, with some interesting remarks. As he said: The world we live in, is increasingly rudderless, in a constant slow burning recession, while at the very same time, the increasing concentration in the IT sector is creating the new technologies that will do that which the Left has failed to do: overthrow Capitalism. It is really very simple. The moment machines pass the Turing test properly, and you pick up the phone and you do not know whether the person you are talking to is a human being or a machine ˙ the moment we are going to have 3D printers operating as public utilities - you can send any blueprint to it and it can print from one pin to a motorcycle, or to a car - the moment that this happens, we have not just a process of Schumpeterian creative destruction, but we have a process where economies of sc...

Capitalism & Genocide - Yanis Varoufakis Speech at the Gaza Tribunal, 23rd October 2025, Istanbul

Yanis Varoufakis   On 23rd October, Yanis Varoufakis testified in front of the Jury of Conscience in the context of the Gaza Tribunal. His speech focused on the economic forces underpinning the genocide of the Palestinian people. In particular, he spoke on the manner in which capitalist dynamics have historically fuelled the white settler colonial project and, more recently, how the accumulation of a new form of capital - which he calls cloud capital - has accelerated, deepened and amplified the economic forces powering and propelling the machinery of genocide. 

Racing Extinction

suggested by failedevolution.blogspot 18th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Scientists predict that humanity’s footprint on the planet may cause the loss of 50% of all species by the end of the century. They believe we have entered the sixth major extinction in Earth’s history, following the fifth great extinction which took out the dinosaurs. Our era is called the Anthropocene, or “Age of Man,” because evidence shows that humanity has sparked a cataclysmic change of the world’s natural environment and animal life. Yet, we are the only ones who can stop the change we have created. The Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), the group behind the Academy Award-winning film The Cove, is back with a new groundbreaking documentary. Joined by new innovators, this highly charged, impassioned collective of activists brings a voice to the thousands of species teetering on the very edge of life. The director has crafted an ambitious mission to clearly and artfu...

Trump Welcomes Syrian Leader & “REFORMED” TERRORIST To White House!

The Jimmy Dore Show   President Donald Trump is planning a White House welcome for Syria’s new president, former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was installed after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. Jimmy Dore argues that the U.S. and its allies, including Israel, have long funded extremist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda to serve foreign policy interests in the Middle East, so the embrace of al-Sharaa makes sense, even if it might confuse anyone who thought we took seriously the so-called “War on Terror.” He and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger contrast Trump’s willingness to meet with alleged terrorists to his refusal to engage in dialogue with leaders like Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, accusing U.S. policy of hypocrisy and imperialism.  

A response to misinformation on Nicaragua: it was a coup, not a ‘massacre’

There is so much misinformation in mainstream corporate media about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it with a seemingly leftish critique. Ellsberg claims that recent articles, including from this website, often “ paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading. ” Unfortunately, her own article does just that. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government while whitewashing their malevolent behavior and downplaying the levels of US support they have relied on. Her piece is an incomplete depiction of what is happening on the ground, ignoring many salient facts that have come to light and which have been outdated by recent events. The following is a brief response to Ellsberg’s main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly and intimately: https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/15/a-res...

Maduro's opening to China

“ Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday said he hopes Venezuela will use bilateral financing mechanisms and channel more funds to the areas of energy, mining, agriculture and industry while meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.” “ Financing mechanisms between the two countries total more than 50 billion U.S. dollars, according to Venezuelan experts. Financing mechanisms, including the China-Venezuela Fund, have provided financial support for some 256 projects. China and Venezuela upgraded their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership during Xi's visit to Venezuela in 2014, opening a new chapter in bilateral ties.” “ During their meeting, Xi called on the two sides to push bilateral ties to a higher-level. China supports Venezuela's efforts in restructuring its economy and establishing a manufacturing economic model, he said. Xi suggested the two countries push forward cooperation in the fields of oil exploration, infrastru...