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The winner of the Greek elections is the Troika
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Former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, is clear in saying that the Tsipras government will fail -again-. Former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, said that “the big winner” of the general elections held on Sunday “is the troika” after the voting resulted in the reelection of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and with it, the greek government and the Troika assure themselves that all the requests from Greek creditors are fulfilled In an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian, Varoufakis explained that, while during the last five years the Troika has managed to turn its austerity plans into laws with little parliamentary majorities, “now the standards needed to support the third bailout will be approved with a comfortable majority.” This is because “Tispras has managed to get a resounding victory from the jaws of July’s humiliating surrender before the troika”. “Defying opposition parties and critics Tsipras managed to stay in the government with a small but functional majority”, which also has the support of almost all opposition,” he stressed. “The big losers are the small parties who occupied the extremes after the referendum” on July 5 to decide on the implementation of the ‘road map’ of the EU. In particular, Varoufakis pointed to Popular Unity, split from the ruling of Syriza, which “has failed miserably when it comes to exploiting the pain of voters who said ‘no’ at the referendum after the change of Tsipras in favor of an agreement that reduces national sovereignty and increases the already fierce levels of austerity. “Of course, to reach this point Greek democracy has been deeply damaged,” he lamented, noting that 1.6 million Greeks who voted in the referendum abstained from voting last Sunday. All this happened, said Varoifakis, without “no great loss to the bureaucrats in Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington, for whom democracy seems to be a nuisance.” Varoufakis said that Tsipras will also be one of the biggest losers, predicting that his new government “has become to fail” because the agreement with its European partners barely leaves room for improvement of credit conditions to the 86 billion euros lent to Greece. “Tsipras must now implement fiscal consolidation and reform programs that are designed to fail,” he argued, pointing as an example that “the already insolvent small Greek companies without access to capital markets, now have to pay taxes in advance based on projections of their benefits.” The former finance minister has predicted that the failure of each of the measures imposed by the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -if it ends up participating in the so-called rescue– will enable the Troika to demand more antisocial and recessive policies “every week”. Varoufakis explained that the strategy of the Prime Minister to “weather the storm” and “remain in power”, at least for the four-year duration of the Legislature in Greece, is based on three reasons: “First, the agreement with the troika is an unfinished business, leaving room for further negotiations on important details; second, the debt relief will come soon, and third, the plans will face Greek oligarchs”, he stated. Despite the apparent confidence in Tsipras as the “best candidate to fulfill these promises, the problem is that the ability to do so is conditioned largely by the agreement he signed.” “His bargaining power is negligible given the clear conditions of the agreement that the Greek government should ‘maintain –with troika– on all relevant actions to achieve the objectives of the Memorandum of Understanding’” he said. As for a possible reduction in the debt, Varoufakis believes it “will undoubtedly come somehow, but it won’t be a therapeutic” experience. The debt relief is important, said Varoufakis, as it “allows less austerity, increases demand and awakens the animal spirit of investors, but an agreement for strong austerity” has been put forward. On the promise of facing the Greek oligarchy, he stressed that “is key to the success of Tsipras” because, “having accepted a new loan program which limits the government’s ability to reduce austerity and protect the weak, the reason of being for a leftist administration is to overthrow harmful interests.” However, “the troika is the best friend of the oligarchs and vice versa.” “During the first six months of 2015, where we were challenging the monopoly of the troika on Greek lawmakers, their biggest supporters were the oligarchs of the press and their political agents, the same people who Tsipras is now embracing. Will he ever be able to oppose them?” he asked. Varoufakis, who recalled the failure of Antonis Samaras, who had a similar strategy — considers that “the outlook is not encouraging,” noting that the only lifeline for Tsipras is to keep in touch with “the victims of the troika” and to use the aggravation of the crisis to demand concessions from Brussels.
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