Yesterday, Greek Prime Minister Papademos told the Nation:
“In a few days we will hand over the baton to the government that will emerge from the elections on Sunday. The elections decide on the strategic orientation of Greece. They will decide about the country’s future for the upcoming decades, not just about which government will be formed after the elections. So I think the public debate should focus to the better understanding of the reality as well. But I am sure that the decisions of citizens will be facing tomorrow and not the past.”
Well Papa, the polls certainly suggest that the youth of Greece is indeed looking to tomorrow, and rejecting the corrupt Parties of the past: yet another secret poll – this time national and obtained by The Slog – has New Democracy around 21-23%, PASOK in the range 14-16%, SYRIZA at 11+%, Independent Greeks at 11+%, KKE at 10%, Golden Dawn at 8+%, and the Democratic Left at roughly 6-7%. So the old Parties of pro-EU graft are looking a bit sick….and well short of a majority.
A reliable source in Athens confirms what The Slog has been saying for the last ten days: “This will increase the pressure on the new government to renegotiate parts of the second bailout programme”. And the Troikanauts are not going to like that one bit.
You might be asking yourselves, “Was this the right time for S&P to upgrade Greece?” and I must confess to the same doubts. In fact, I have doubts about WTF S&P’s judgements about anything mean any more. However, it could be that S&P has more inside information than The Slog. A report from Athens News states that during a meeting with accredited reporters and party representatives at the interior ministry earlier today (Thursday) executives at Singular Logic in charge of the Greek electoral count pushed back the time when a ‘safe estimate’ of the result would emerge by nearly two hours.
Far be it from me to suggest that this might allow more time for electoral jiggery-pokery. Singular Logic stressed that the system was “absolutely secure and had successfully fended off attempted attacks by hackers in the previous election in 2009 without any problems at all”. What on Earth can they mean?
In the time between now and that enigma being solved, here’s another consideration that the Greek electorate is weighing up. In the first quarter of 2012,Greek tax revenues rose by 1.7 billion euros from 24.2 billion 25.9 billion. And primary government expenditure decreased from 23.692 billion to 23.626 billion. In order to achieve this, however, the public as a whole had to cought up 7 billion euros, compared with just 3.33 billion in the corresponding period last year.
Now….how many Governments do you know about that got re-elected having more than doubled tax revenues?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Troika is in for something of a drubbing. And that might well explain why the election ‘result’ could be delayed, in order to take account of ‘mistakes’.
The Slog 