ND-PASOK Alliance For Greece

After blaming the dominant New Democracy (ND) Conservatives and PASOK Socialists for creating Greece’s crushing economic crisis, and after raging protests, strikes and riots against them for three years, Greeks are set to be governed by a power-sharing partnership of the two parties after a third coalition partner, the Democratic Left (DIMAR) was ready to secede after disagreeing with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ snap decision to close the national broadcaster ERT and fire all 2,656 workers there.
Talks broke down late on the night of June 20 when DIMAR leader Fotis Kouvelis walked after standing his ground against the firings, but PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos backed off on his insistence that the government rehire all the dismissed workers. Instead, Venizelos reportedly accepted a deal from Samaras to bring back 2,000 of the workers.
It was unclear whether that would be for only a few months, as Samaras said ERT would later this summer be replaced by a new entity to be called NERIT, but with only 1000-1200 workers, meaning another 800-1,000 will be dismissed.
All three leaders had agreed to demands from international lenders to shed 2,500 public workers this summer and another 15,000 by the end of 2014 in return for continued bailouts, but Venizelos and Kouvelis said none should have come from ERT, although they offered no alternative solution.
In the end, Venizelos gave in but Kouvelis said he would hold an urgent meeting of his party leaders on the morning of June 21 amid reports he would break with the coalition. Samaras’ party has 125 seats in the 300-member Parliament, and PASOK has 28, giving the two parties a slim majority of 153 seats. DIMAR has only 14 but was brought on board to give a sense of legitimacy to the coalition, but Samaras said he now doesn’t care if Kouvelis stays with him or not as he has the votes to rule.
Unless Kouvelis changes his mind again, Samaras declared he would now forge ahead with more reforms without DIMAR, and with the backing of Venizelos would finish his term that lasts another three years.
The Premier said he would also finally obey a June 17 court order to restore ERT’s signal that he had ignored and said the public broadcaster would resume without returning to what he called its “sinful status,” referring to the hiring of needless workers there by the two parties over the years.
“Today (President) Fotis Kouvelis and DIMAR were outside the framework of the agreement we had reached on Wednesday, asking for a return to the sinful status of ERT,” said Samaras, adding that Venizelos “is right when saying that some assume the full responsibility of governing and some are only there some of the times.” He didn’t say that Venizelos had objected to a number of reforms but then relented on those as well.
Samaras said he hoped Kouvelis would yet give in, but added that he was determined to carry on: “Today was the anniversary of the first year since the formation of this coalition. We have three more years ahead of us,” pledged Samaras.
There’s also expected to be a shakeup of the Cabinet in which Venizelos could be rewarded with ministerial positions and a greater role in governing the country, keeping him in the limelight although his party is polling only about 5 percent. With the compromise, he averted the likelihood of early elections in which PASOK would have been marginalized even more.
Visibly tired and speaking on a recorded televised message, Samaras made his determination clear regarding reforms, declaring that, “We will continue on the road of responsibility.” He didn’t say if that meant more austerity because of a shortfall in revenues and the failure to gain any bidders for the gas company DEPA in a lagging privatization process.