A 77-year-old-man committed suicide in front of the parliament buildings… he said that he could be a burden to his children or he could “eat garbage”. THAT’S what “austerity” means, kids… that’s the ugly scabrous reality of it all. It’s the Republican Party’s panacea for the USA, too… I say, “Fuck the banksters, fuck their political whores, and, most of all, fuck their oligarch paymasters”… there’s no “nice” way of putting it… a vote for the GOP is a vote for throwing our parents on the scrap heap. Please, excuse me, as I hurl…
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On Friday, in a live national TV broadcast, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos refused the mandate to form a government, paving the way for a new round of elections. He said the reason was that the SYRIZA leftist coalition refused to participate in the government, saying, “SYRIZA‘s participation (in the cabinet) is a necessity”. On Saturday, Venizelos will inform President Karolos Papoulias of the impossibility of forming a government. PASOK is the third political bloc to fail to form a cabinet. Now, under the constitution, the President must convene a council of the leaders of the parliamentary parties, and if this measure doesn’t produce a result, he must dissolve the parliament elected on 6 May and call new elections for next month.
Venizelos received the mandate only after the centre-right New Democracy and the radical Left SYRIZA tried to form broad coalitions , but failed… the leftists said that they weren’t going to abandon their position. Speaking on state television, Alexis Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA, said, “Mr Venizelos’ proposal envisaged the creation of a broad-based government with our participation, to implement his policy vis-à-vis creditors. SYRIZA refused this offer, as the Greek people have spoken at the ballot box”.
Meanwhile, lenders warned Greece that it must fulfil its obligation to reduce spending , or they threatened Greece with expulsion from the Eurozone. Die Zeit quoted German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble as saying that Europe can cope with a possible withdrawal of Greece from the Eurozone. He said, “Over the past two years we’ve learned a lot and were able to build protective mechanisms”. On Friday, international rating agency Fitch Ratings warned that it intends to put the ratings of all countries in the Eurozone under review for downgrade if Greece leaves the monetary union due to a political crisis, or because of its failure to meet its financial obligations to its creditors.
11 May 2012
Aleksei Bogdanovsky
RIA-Novosti
