No agreement yet as Greece tries to form a government and population fumes

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:22:00 -0500

The Greece of today is nothing like the triumphant Greece that hosted the 2004 Olympic games. Unemployment is high, anger is high and mental health is frayed. That's the findings of a reporter who used to live in Greece and headed back to see what's changed in the days of austerity and budget cuts.

Nikos Retsos

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:21:34 -0500

There won't be any coalition government because the Radical Left (RL) Syriza party, and its leader Alexis Tsipras doesn't want one. After the May 6 election, he suddenly found himself in the position of being a parliamentary kingmaker by bashing the EU and the austerity measures. Now Mr. Tsipras looking at the crystal ball of the next elections, and the polls show that Syriza would come out at the top. That is why he doesn't want to participate in any coalition government now as a junior partner, when kingship, and the position a prime minister seems to be waiting for him after a June election!

A Greek newspaper last week headlined the expected second election next month as: "Elections On The Titanic." Now some Greeks also suspect that Mr. Tsipra's youth and inexperience in government may sink the country deeper into trouble, and may push it out of the euro. And if that happens, Greeks will slide further down from being poor into the "euro," to being paupers of the "Drachma" in their bankrupt country! I see this scenario as a 50-50% possibility.

If it comes to that, then, the Greeks would rise back with massive protests in Syntagma Square against Mr. Tsipras. But by then, Greece will be at the bottom, like the Titanic, and un-salvageable! Nikos Retsos, retired professor

PRI: Public Radio International

No agreement yet as Greece tries to form a government and population fumes

Nikos Retsos