Weary of Austerity, More Greeks Oppose Bailouts

Furious over repeated rounds of pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions that government leaders keep saying are necessary to keep international aid coming and prevent the country from being pushed out of the Eurozone, more Greeks are now opposed to the bailouts and attached austerity measures.
An opinion poll published on Oct. 12 by Public Issue for SKAI TV in Athens and the daily newspaper Kathimerini found that 72 percent are against the bailouts that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said are the country’s only hope.
He said another $17.45 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes would be the last, although Greeks have heard that before and few believe it anymore. The last poll found 68 percent opposed.
The austerity measures have largely backfired, creating a record 25.1 percent unemployment, closing 68,000 businesses – including 4,000 restaurants in the last year alone – and is shrinking the economy by 7 percent. Greeks have been told for the last 2 ½ years that the measures are all that’s keeping the country from collapsing, but they have not worked and more people are giving up hope that they will.
Only 13 percent of Greeks support Samaras’ plan, yet most Greeks say they don’t want the country to leave the Eurozone, a contradiction with the answers at odds with each other and which can’t be reconciled. “The political climate is worsening,” Public Issue head Yannis Mavris told SKAI. “These are very high (negative) levels which we haven’t seen in a very long time, and they capture precisely the general political climate.”
The crisis has sparked relentless protests, strikes and riots and brought down the previous government headed by then-PASOK Socialist leader George Papandreou. A May election led to a stalemate but a repeat poll the next month elected Samaras’ New Democracy party after he promised to oppose austerity, but which he promptly reneged on the moment he took office.
Samaras is overseeing an uneasy coalition government his otherwise rivals, PASOK and the Democratic Left, all of whom are sinking fast in recent polls that put the major opposition party, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) in the lead and show the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn soaring.
The poll showed only 21 percent of respondents believe Samaras will serve out his four-year term and will suffer the same fate as Papandreou, who also supported austerity. Some 70 percent of people predict an early election and 44 percent believe SYRIZA, which vehemently opposes the austerity measures, would win.