What is at Stake in the Greek Elections?

[polly7]

By Chris Spannos
Source: teleSUR English
January 22, 2015

An overview of how Greece’s Jan. 25 election weighs heavy upon major issues of the day.

It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the Jan. 25 Greek elections. Out of control economic austerity has left three million Greeks without health insurance, soaring infant mortality, and an increase in suicides. No less than the livelihoods of the Greek people are at stake. At the same time the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — together known as the troika — are forcing debt repayment conditions that include sweeping privatization of the country’s public assets. If Greeks elect the left wing Syriza party to majority power, the result could transform the character of the Hellenic Republic and the European Union itself.

.....Finally, by reducing family incomes and increasing the unemployment of parents, Greece’s austerity measures have also severely affected the health of children. In October 2014, UNICEF reported that since 2008 Greek child poverty rates have increased by more than 50 percent. A growing number of these children receive inadequate nutrition. The Lancet study reported that between 2008 and 2011 the number of stillbirths rose 21 percent, “The long-term fall in infant mortality has reversed, rising by 43 percent between 2008 and 2010, with increases in both neonatal and post-neonatal deaths.”

The scope of social problems is overwhelming. In order to deal with some of them, Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras outlined their plan for an immediate response to the humanitarian crisis at the party’s national gathering earlier this month. The plan included food vouchers for the poorest 300,000 households, free healthcare, a shelter program for the homeless, and much more.

Rationalizing how it compromises the Hellenic Republic’s national sovereignty to international capital, HRADF views privatization, not merely as a sale of public assets, but a “key element in re-establishing credibility” for the return of Greece as a player in global capital markets. HRADF was created in 2011 with the sole mission of maximize profits from the sale of Greece’s public assets. More than 80,000 properties have been assessed, 3,000 preselected for development and 1,000 already transferred to the body for privatization. The HRADF boasts of having already “raised” 3.1 billion of its 7.7 billion euro (US $8.9 billion) transaction value. It prides itself in that a large number of regulatory, administrative and technical barriers have been slashed to speed up privatizations.

More: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/what-is-at-stake-in-the-greek-elections/

[swilton]

1. Economist Richard Wolff

has placed a lot of emphasis on this and (in my own words) sees a victory as a positive trend.

[polly7]

2. I sure hope so.

I'm crossing my fingers for them. The stories of suicide and hopelessness I've read coming out of Greece for the last while have been heartbreaking. Something has to change.