Greece: Why SYRIZA made the deal with the Independent Greeks (ANEL)

Haris Triandafilidou explains Why SYRIZA made the deal with the Independent Greeks (ANEL).

The swift formation of the coalition between SYRIZA and the Anexartitoi Ellines (AN.EL., “Independent Greeks“) party was met with incomprehension in other European countries. While the indignation of middle-class parties and the mainstream media is to be ascribed to hypocrisy rather than to serious concerns regarding democracy and rule of law, the concerns of numerous SYRIZA supporters in other European countries makes a closer examination of the coalition partner necessary:

AN.EL. was founded by the former ND deputy Panos Kammenos in February 2012. In its founding manifesto, the party pledged itself to popular sovereignty, the protection of the constitution, national pride and parliamentary democracy. Apart from that, the party calls for the abolition of the memoranda, which are perceived as an attack by the new world order. In item 6 AN.EL. pledges itself to equal rights (isonomy), solidarity, justice, meritocracy and equality and commits itself to protecting Greek families and all citizens from the attacks of the market. Its commitment to the values of the Greek Orthodox church and its positive impact on the people and the nation go hand in hand with the protection of religious freedom.

At a press conference a few days before the election, Kammenos had declared himself against the Dublin II Regulation that provides for undocumented migrants being detained in Greece against their will and underlined that every human life is of equal value, independent of its country of origin. “Illegal migrants must be given the possibility to travel to a country in which they can live without being subjected to violence or the methods of Mr Voridis or the Golden Dawn. In Greece this is not possible”, Kammenos stated.

The delegates’ speeches in the course of the party’s founding convention in February 2012 mainly focused on praising the chairman, Greek cultural heritage and the Greek Orthodox religion and condemning Greece’s sell-out to its creditors. The political agenda of the years between 2012 and 2015 shaped and accentuated this seemingly chaotic accumulation of patriotic, anti-neoliberal and Christian Orthodox positions that rarely had matched the right-wing extremist profile pinned on the party.

For example, in June 2013, the party positioned itself clearly against the shut-down of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT). It supported the 595 cleaners who were laid off by the ministry of economy and called for the investigation of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 12 persons in the Farmakonisi refugee tragedy. Associating Kammenos and his party with the right of the political spectrum is out of the question.

Pro-memoranda and anti-memoranda attitudes have overtaken the political division between right and left. In other words, the self-positioning of AN.EL as an anti-memoranda party results in certain positions being adopted on privatisation and the dismantlement of workers’ rights but also on “side effects” such as dismantling democracy, the state and police violence becoming more and more authoritarian. These positions shape the party’s political profile and the relationship with its voters in a way that cannot be taken back without political losses.

The election of January 25 has led to a unique situation. The avalanche of neoliberalism in the past five years has brought radical changes to the established patterns of political attitudes and the party spectrum. For the first time in European history, a party of the left has emerged as the winner of an election. For the first time in post-war European history, a national-socialist party [Golden Dawn] whose leaders are facing trial for establishing a criminal association and for contract killings is the third strongest force in a parliament.

Emphasis Mine

In these pre-revolutionary times, it is not unusual for conservatives (like me) to end up as revolutionaries. The key is defining and reflecting on one's core values. In doing so, one can end up in places where one never thought one would have.

This appears to the case with AN.EL, what would have been a mildly reformist agenda in the post-WW II era has become revolutionary because of the neo-liberalism shift in the Capitalist ruling class. In order to be true to their values, they have joined forces with those who would have been their arch-enemies (SYRIZA) in earlier times to defeat the greater enemy: the troika.

It will be an interesting political journey for AN.EL and SYRIZA as well as for Greece.