A few hours ago the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, handed his resignation to the President of Greece. Just before doing so he gave a 15 minute message to the population that was also broadcast by many press agencies around the world. In accordance with the relevant articles of the Constitution, the President will give other parliamentary parties an exploratory mandate to form a government. But it seems that shaping a new government will not be feasible so the country will be led by a caretaker government until elections take place, probably in a month from now.
The opposition declared that they will explore every possibility of shaping a new government with all other parties within Parliament, even Golden Dawn. Golden Dawn has promised to deal with the memorandum and with ‘illegal’ migrants. Some of the Parliamentarians elected with SYRIZA but who refused to vote for the new austerity measures have declared that there will be a way for those who disagree with these kinds of policies to be represented during elections, implying the creation of a new political party.
Brussels reacted very positively to the possibility of early and quick elections could be seen in the comments of the representative of J.C. Junker, and the words of J.P. Moskovisi and J. Dijsselbloem.
Tsipras’ resignation finds many Greeks either tired in the big cities or trying to relax during the summer holiday. The discussions about who to vote for in the upcoming elections has already started. It’s clear that in the Greece of recent years, every record for political instability has been broken. Disappointment, the result of everything that has happened since the recent referendum, reigns. It is possible that a large number of voters will turn their backs on the existing government of SYRIZA – ANEL (because of the incoherent choices with respect to their pre-electoral promises) and this will be expressed by abstention. How easy will it be for a new political party to persuade the people within a period of about 30 days? What percentage of the electorate will leak to other anti-memorandum political forces within the Parliament? How many people will stand for more of SYRIZA, either because they may think that an honest battle was fought against the cruel position of the Eurozone and that there was nothing more that could be done, or because they don’t even want to hear about the previous governments? How will the people handle another round of abuse by the systemic mass media?
These historical moments are crucial and the global community is anxious again. Greeks should try to stay calm because after all, a month is a very long period in politics.
