Has our political system reached rock bottom?

By Nikos Konstandaras

We still don’t know if our economy has reached the long-desired “rock bottom,” the point at which the only way is up. The results of the voting for the European Parliament and for local government suggest that there may be an equivalent point in politics – a base which expresses voters’ needs and anxieties. When the final results confirm initial estimates, it will be useful for our political parties to take stock of their responsibility toward their voters and shape their policies accordingly.

On Sunday it appeared that in the Euro election, the leftwing opposition party SYRIZA won about 26.7 percent, followed by New Democracy with 22.8 percent, Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn with 9.3 percent, the Elia alliance (PASOK) with 8.1 percent and To Potami with 6.7 percent. We can see that SYRIZA won the most votes but failed to improve on its result in the national elections of June 2012 (26.89 percent). Center right New Democracy, the senior partner in the coalition government, managed to hold on to a large number of its voters from 2012 (when it won 29.66 percent), even though it made a large number of tactical errors and is carrying out a harsh austerity program that includes punitive taxation. Elia gained less than the 12.28 percent that PASOK won in 2012, but it was a lot more than opinion polls were giving the coalition’s junior partner.

The Euro elections are fertile ground for a protest vote and SYRIZA had made clear that this was a referendum that would lead to the government’s being forced to call early elections. Late last night, SYRIZA’s candidate was involved in a tight race to head the Attica Region, whereas Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis managed to hold off a strong challenge by a leftist hopeful. If SYRIZA had managed...