GREEK Prime Minister and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras initiated a meeting of all the political parties’ leaders in Athens on Monday.
A ‘joint statement’, issued after the meeting signed by Tsipras and the conservative and social democratic leaders but not by the Greek Communist Party, says that ‘the referendum decision of the Greek people does not constitute a mandate for a rupture with the troika, but a mandate for a viable solution’ with the troika.’
Tsipras was to attend the Eurosummit scheduled for Tuesday night to present the Greek government’s proposals for a new agreement with the EC and IMF. The US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew telephoned the new Greek Finance Minister Efklides Tsakalotos to insist that the Greek government makes an austerity deal with the troika.
As banks remained closed throughout Greece, and with people allowed to draw only 60 euros per day from ATMs, the European Central Bank turned the screw on the Greek government and financial system. The ECM announced that Greek state bonds are being accepted at reduced value and so cash to the Greek banks is further limited.
Tsipras’ action to side with the utterly defeated bourgeois parties of the ‘YES’ vote, following the landslide victory of the ‘NO’ vote in last Sunday’s referendum, constitutes a naked betrayal of the Greek people’s mandate of ‘NO’ to the troika’s austerity.
Tsipras’ decision, without any consultation with his SYRIZA party, in fact constitutes the formation of a grand coalition made up of SYRIZA and its junior government partner the nationalist ANEL party, with the defeated conservatives, social democrats and the bourgeois media Potami party.
Tsipras is turning the ‘NO’ vote into a ‘YES’ to an austerity agreement with the EC-IMF-ECB troika while SYRIZA’s ‘left platform’ remain silent. Whatever the outcome of Tsipras’ negotiations with the troika, the confident Greek workers, youth and poor farmers are not going back to austerity accords or agreements.
They will have to be mobilised immediately to secure their ‘NO’ vote and smash up the conspiracies of the troika and the counter-revolutionary front of SYRIZA, ANEL and the capitalist parties to impose austerity.
