Following Tsipras’ resignation, the President of the Greek Republic has ordered the opposition to investigate the possibility of forming a government. The New Democracy Party seems to be ending the 3 days they were given without any effect. Tomorrow the baton will pass to a newly formed party called People’s Unity. The founding act was signed on Friday by 25 deputies, less than 24 hours after the resignation of Alexis Tsipras. With this move they relieved Syriza of their “troublesome” presence because in every vote in Parliament in recent weeks they withheld support for every law that was either a prerequisite measure for the memorandum or the new memorandum itself. The number of Parliamentarians and political figures joining the new political party is growing, something that is well understood at least for the first days of its birth.
People’s Unity was ready for launch several days ago. They have a simple but updated website, they have presence in social media, they support news flow and they have their basic positions. So let’s see what the new party declares! This is a new-born party that will receive a mandate to form a government on Monday and a party that, if finally we have an election, will claim part of the 61.38% voters who voted NO in the referendum earlier this year on the 5th of July.
The authors of the party’s program consider the following measures to be important:
- The abolition of the Memorandums and the loan agreements.
- The suspension of debt payments, aiming for a write-off of the majority. The suspension of burdensome debt payments will be accompanied by political and legal activities, at the UN level and in universal courts of law, in which the preliminary results of the Parliament’s debt audit report will be used. The issue of German war reparations will be brought again to the negotiations.
- The termination of austerity and the implementation of a policy of redistribution of social wealth in favour of those in work and against oligarchs.
- The nationalizationof the four largest banks and their operation under social control, with total assurance of people’sRe-openthe Agricultural Bankand thePost bank.
There is a need for further positioning according to the new party in the following areas:
- Radical change in labour laws restoring collective agreements, drastic reduction of employer’s unfairness, strict limits and disincentives to redundancies, establishment of workers’ control in company management, activation and strengthening of labour
- Create a permanent, socially fair and redistributive tax system, establishment of a national, unified property register for all.
- End to wild privatization of services and infrastructure (electricity, gas, ports, airports, government buildings, etc.). Nationalization and operation under social control of all important business and strategic infrastructure.
- Economic reconstruction of “a development that has the producers of social wealth at its heart.”
- Brave strengthening of public, free educationand research. Strengthening of the “third” sector, the social economy.
According to their programme exiting the Eurozone is essential, while the programme also refers to a possible rupture with the E.U. It says that if things go that far, then the people will decide if Greece will exit the E.U. or not through a referendum. The programme also states that the party supports the exit of Greece from NATO, the removal of US bases from the country, the non-participation of Greece in imperialist organizations, the end of military cooperation with Israel and the official recognition of the Palestine state.
In a few hours’ time, they will have a mandate of 3 days in which to try to form a government. All eyes will be upon them, that’s for sure.