People's Democracy

GREECE

Substantial Strengthening Of KKE In General Elections

Hopeful sign for the people’s movement

THE general elections that took place in Greece on September 16 have been marked by an impressive performance of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), which polled 8.2 per cent votes and had 22 MPs elected. This is almost doubling of its parliamentary strength in comparison to last elections and it constituted KKE's best performance result in legislative elections since 1990. The vote share increase of KKE (+2.26 per cent in comparison with 2004) is the biggest one since 1993.

At the same time both the New Democracy and PASOK parties suffered losses. New Democracy polled 41.84 per cent votes losing 3.52 per cent from its performance in 2004 and PASOK got 38.10 of the votes, losing 2.45 per cent, which is its worst result since 1977.

The SYRIZA coalition increased its votes to 5.04 per cent, approaching the performance of Synaspismos at the 1996 elections (5.12 per cent). The extreme right LAOS party (already present in the European Parliament), polled 3.8 per cent votes and also entered the parliament.

KKE's performance in the general election enthused the members and supporters of the party who saw it as a hopeful sign for the popular movement. However, at the same time, the two mainstream parties still maintain high percentage of votes despite the popular dissatisfaction. The party noted that strong efforts are needed in order to develop struggles to repel the anti-popular measures that the ND government will put forward; to counter the center-left and center-right scenarios aiming at evolving a bipolar system.

The electoral performance of KKE contains an important dynamic, since it achieved particularly high voting in the big urban centres, among workers and young people, especially among workers of the private sector, unemployed, self-employed and poor farmers.

The KKE central committee making a first assessment of the results underlined that the party is committed to meet the expectations of all those voters, among them a large number of young people, who for the first time trusted the KKE.
It will try to strengthen the bonds with them at the fields of struggles, the political action, and the dialogue for the alternative.

The central committee noted that the rise of KKE percentage in combination with the losses of both the ND and PASOK parties corresponds up to a certain extent to the call of KKE for weakening of these two parties and strengthening of the KKE.

It underscored that that the communists would be closer to the problems of the working class and would contribute in cultivating a spirit of organisation and struggle, with greater vigour at the forefront of the struggles in defence of the people’s rights.