THE Greek government of Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou won the confidence vote in the Vouli (Greek parliament) with a margin of just three last Friday midnight.
However, the condition is that he forms a new coalition government, not necessarily with him at the helm.
This outcome was demanded by the Finance Minister E Venizelos, and his supporters in the ruling PASOK party.
It has plunged the whole political edifice of the Greek capitalist system into a deeper crisis.
The whole system is now bursting at the seams since the Opposition conservative party leader, Antonis Samaras, states that his party demands the resignation of Papandreou and the formation of a ‘transitional provisional government’.
Its purpose is to push through the Vouli, the EC-IMF Agreement on Greece of 26/27 October, and then hold a general election before the end of the year.
Both the KKE (Greek Communist Party) and the SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) have said that they won’t be joining a coalition and have demanded an immediate general election.
But the leader of LAOS, a small right-wing racist party, said that he is willing to enter a coalition government, while the leaders of two other small bourgeois parties also indicated their willingness.
Both Papandreou and Venizelos stated that their plan does not envisage a general election until next February at the earliest, which gives the necessary time to prepare for the vote on the EC-IMF Agreement which will require the consent of 180 parliamentary deputies.
Their problem is that the combined deputies of the ruling PASOK party and of the three other small parties do not add up to 180. That is why the leaders of those small parties said that they won’t enter a coalition government unless the entire Opposition joins in.
Throughout last weekend frantic attempts were made to convince the Opposition leader Samaras to agree on a coalition government headed by Venizelos.
By yesterday afternoon he had agreed, on condition that Papandreou resign as PM.
This was the demand of the European Commission and the IMF. It emphasises that Greece is now under the jackboot of the EU bosses and bankers.
This whole affair has seen incredible U-turns by PASOK parliamentary deputies.
They had publicly declared up to Friday morning that they would not give a confidence vote to Papandreou.
However, the last thing that Merkel and Sarkozy want is a general election.
They are behind the machinations and the conspiracies of the Greek ruling class and its parties to form a ‘national coalition’ government with the sole stated aim of imposing the truly barbaric EC-IMF Agreement on Greece which decimates workers’ wages and pensions, throws out of work hundreds of thousands of public sector workers and civil servants, and imposes a minimal monthly wage of about £450 which is impossible to live on.
On top of this, the Papandreou government have imposed a series of new taxes on workers which are directly taken from their wages or paid along with the high electricity and gas bills.
This has led to a situation where, according to the State Electricity Board, over one million homes and businesses have not paid their bills while over 300,000 households are facing the immediate cut off of electricity supply because none of their bills have been paid in the last six months.
Last Friday night over six thousand workers and students participated in two mobilisations held in Athens demanding the overthrow of the government. The KKE held a rally outside the Vouli where its general secretary Aleka Paparigha stated that the people must fight for the overthrow of the Papandreou government and for a general election.
The Co-ordination of Trade Unions held a demonstration to the Vouli also demanding the overthrow of the Papandreou government.
Both the KKE and the lefts of the Co-ordination Committee are demanding the withdrawal of Greece from the EC but neither of them have put forward a programme for the overthrow of capitalism.
Only the Trotskyists of the Revolutionary Marxist League have declared that there must be an indefinite political general strike to overthrow the government, and that there must be a workers and small farmers government brought in based on workers peoples’ assemblies and councils of action to bring in a socialist planned economy.
This will also lead the fight, to mobilise the workers of Europe to bring down the EU of the bankers and bosses and bring in the Socialist United States of Europe.
The Greek workers are becoming more and more convinced that this struggle is vital for the workers of Europe and must be waged across the continent.
