Greece swings to the right
Amid the controversy surrounding Cyprus and the Olympic Games, the Socialists make way for the rightist New Democrats, Michael Jansen reports from Athens
Costas Karamanlis has no grace period for settling into his job as Greece's new prime minister. His most urgent domestic challenge is to speed up construction of the facilities for the 13-29 August Olympic Games. He has just five months to complete work on more than half the venues, including the construction of the glass and steel dome over the stadium. Before delivering his victory speech, Karamanlis met Gianna Angelopoulos, the Olympics organiser, to work out a strategy for completing the work on time.
Although Greece cannot afford to fail with the modern games first staged in 776BC at Olympia in the Peloponese, Karamanlis may have to take on the powerful socialist-run unions that threatened to strike and otherwise disrupt work if his party won the 7 March election.
Only 12 hours after his rival George Papandreou conceded defeat, Karamanlis also had to shoulder Greece's most demanding external task: a leading role in resolving the Cyprus problem. During the election campaign Karamanlis prepared for this eventuality by visiting both Cyprus, where he reassured Greek Cypriots of his full backing, and Ankara, where he struck up a warm relationship with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
This connection could prove to be of crucial importance over the next 10 days as Greek and Turkish Cypriots begin the process of give-and-take in negotiations aimed at reunifying the divided island in a bizonal, bicommunal federation. The UN-brokered talks between Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Cypriot Leader Rauf Denktash have not gone well and Greece and Turkey may have to intervene between 22-29 March to reach agreement on disputed provisions in the plan put forward by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. If Athens and Ankara cannot bridge outstanding differences, Annan himself will "fill in the blanks" before putting the plan to the Greek and Turkish Cypriots in referenda at the end of April.
If the two sides accept the plan, a reunited Cyprus will enter the European Union (EU) on 1 May. If not, the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot majority republic in the south will become a member and the aquis communautaire will not be applied to the Turkish Cypriot north. This could negatively affect Graeco-Turkish relations that improved dramatically during George Papandreou's tenure as foreign minister. Papandreou has announced that he will back Karamanlis over Cyprus and can be expected to urge the unions involved in the Olympic enterprise to exercise restraint.
At 47, Costas Karamanlis is Greece's youngest prime minister. He took over New Democracy eight years ago and gradually transformed it into a winning party. He narrowly lost the 2000 election but won handsomely this time round by capturing the youth vote. New Democracy took 45.4 per cent of the vote, securing around 170 seats in the 300- member parliament. While most Greeks favoured George Papandreou, 51, personally, voters were weary of his party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), which captured 40.6 per cent of the vote, taking around 115 seats. Pasok has been in power for 20 of the past 23 years and is accused of arrogance, inefficiency, and corruption.
This election was dubbed the "battle of the dynasties" as Karamanlis and Papandreou belong to the country's two most influential political families. Costas Karamanlis is the nephew and namesake of Constantine Karamanlis, who served as premier from 1955-63, when Greece was struggling to recover from World War II and the civil strife that followed. He went into exile after the military junta seized power in 1967 and became the figurehead of the democratic opposition's campaign against the generals. Constantine Karamanlis returned in triumph after the junta fell and Turkey occupied northern Cyprus in 1974. He founded his own party, the National Radical Union, and served as prime minister until ousted by Pasok, headed by Andreas Papandreou, the father of George Papandreou. Just two weeks before the poll, he resigned as foreign minister and took over the leadership of Pasok.
George Papandreou, a third generation politician, was named after his grandfather, a liberal nationalist, who went into enforced exile during World War II, became prime minister in 1963 and was toppled by the army coup in 1967.
Greece, the EU's poorest member, joined the Eurozone in 2001. Since then, inflation has fallen to 2.9 per cent and economic expansion has been rapid, reaching nearly five per cent in 2003, more than double the EU average. But Greece did not attain a "Hellenic miracle" to match the "Celtic miracle" of Ireland. Greece's unemployment rate of 8.8 per cent is amongst Europe's highest and the country's per capita gross domestic product rests at three-quarters of the EU average, creating widespread frustration amongst the working class and youth.
Pasok, which was founded as an ideological leftist movement hostile to the US for its support of the junta, evolved into a pragmatic party committed to the EU, friendship with the West, reconciliation with Turkey, and resolution of the 50-year-old Cyprus dispute.
New Democracy, under Costas Karamanlis, which expelled right-wingers and moved towards the centre-right, is also a pragmatic party. It can be expected to follow the Pasok lead on the above issues. But during the campaign, Karamanlis attempted to accentuate differences by pledging to produce jobs, remould the bureaucracy, attract foreign investment, privatise inefficient public companies, effect agricultural expansion, increase tourism, upgrade shipping and revamp the energy sector. He said he would make dramatic changes to the fossilised bureaucracy and attempt to cut the volumes of red tape that ensnare any application to the administration.
Karamanlis has very little time to deliver on these electoral promises. The Greek national assembly is due to vote on a new president next year. If New Democracy cannot muster the 180 votes required, there will have to be a new parliament
