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On Sunday, based on exit polls, Russian media reported that Greece’s Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) won enough votes to form a new government. The rightwing New Democracy bloc, led by current Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, received 25 percent of votes, followed by the Far Right Golden Dawn bloc, which garnered about 6 percent. Seven parties managed to pass the 3-percent threshold. The decision to hold early legislative elections in Greece came in December 2014, after the Hellenic Parliament failed to elect a new President of the Hellenic Republic. SYRIZA vowed to modify Greece’s austerity measures, aimed to meet the bailout conditions set by international creditors in exchange for multibillion Euro loans issued over Greece’s sovereign debt crisis.
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On Sunday, according to an official projection issued by the Greek Ministry of the Interior, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) received 36.5 percent of votes in the Greek parliamentary election. Next was the rightwing New Democracy bloc, with 27.7 percent, followed by the Far Right Golden Dawn with 6.3 percent, neoliberal centre-right To Potami with 5.9 percent, and the Hellenic Communist Party with 5.6 percent. A Ministry of the Interior source noted, “Seven parties will enter the parliament. SYRIZA will get 150 seats, according to preliminary data”, observing that preliminary numbers will change as they count more votes. The projection came after officials counted a quarter of the votes.
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Greek media reported that the leader of SYRIZA, tipped by exit polls to win the current Greek election is true to his socialist beliefs… he makes his home in a modest apartment in an average Athens neighbourhood. Greek website protothema.com posted, “Alexis Tsipras lives with his partner and two children in a beige-coloured block of flats in the modest, working-class district of Kyspeli, Athens, at 4a Harmony Street. His seven-storey apartment block overlooks an empty lot full of rubbish and two abandoned cottages. The walls of the streets where he lives are covered with graffiti scrawled with politically-tinged messages”.
The down-to-earth style of Tsipras, 40, may hold the key to the popularity of the man whose party is currently leading in exit polls and is on course to head the next Greek government, governing with a left-wing anti-austerity programme. The Telegraph reported that neighbours of Tsipras, whose youngest son’s middle name is Ernesto, after Che Guevara, said the politician isn’t distinct from the rest of the residents. Marketing manager Kostas Stroubis told the paper, “He comes and goes mostly in a car. We’re wondering whether he’ll move somewhere smarter if he becomes Prime Minister”. A former taxi driver said, “Tsipras understands the tragic situation that Greece is in. He wants to lift the bestial pressure placed on us by the bankers”.
Tsipras, who trained as an engineer, first cut his political teeth in 1990 when, having joined the Communist youth movement, he took part in protests against education reforms and became one of the main negotiators with the government on behalf of student protestors. On Sunday evening, Greek pollsters forecast that SYRIZA should win 150 seats, one short of an outright majority.
25 January 2015
Sputnik International
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150125/1017332424.html
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150125/1017335853.html
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150125/1017336398.html
Editor:
This comes at a bad time for the Uniate junta. It means that the EU will be preoccupied with Greece for some time, putting the Ukraine on a back burner. The USA will be more concerned with Greece, too… on top of its fixation on ISIS (it sees that if it doesn’t act quickly, Iraq will fall into Iran’s orbit, totally negating the political effect of the 2003 Bush Aggression). In short, there may be NO resources left for the Poroshenko Clique. I believe that the original Ukrainian coup occurred because the American leadership had its vision fixed on Iraq and on domestic concerns. This left the field free for Galician diaspora elements in Langley who fomented the coup to favour their local clients. A year on, their pets have fucked up royally… the coup created a state that’s a veritable A-One Clusterfuck… everyone’s betting on how long it’s gonna take for them to go down. Now, with a leftist victory in Greece, the American leadership again is distracted. I believe that this will embolden neocons and diaspora Galicians… Poroshenko might end up dead. Who’ll replace him? Beyond it being one of the Triumvirate (Turdchinov, Avakov, or the Rabbit), no one knows.
SYRIZA faces many foes, both internal and external. Sadly, the EU and the USA will do their best to subvert them. Greece may be the beginning of a new dawn for the Left or the beginning of a new Long Night of bankster neoliberal hell. We’ll have to see…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
Greece Must Turn to Russia: Independent Greeks
Tags: 2015 Greek parliamentary election, Coalition of the Radical Left, diplomacy, diplomatic relations, Election, elections, EU, European Union, Greece, Greek elections, Hellenic Parliament, political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, Syriza
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Gabriel Avramidis of the Independent Greeks (ANEL) bloc told TASS that Greece must adjust its geopolitical priorities and turn towards Russia. ANEL joined in a coalition government with the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), which won last Sunday’s parliamentary election. Avramidis stated that rethinking Greece’s geopolitical alliances was important to ANEL leader Panos Kammenos. Avramidis said, “We believe that [Greece] should make a geopolitical turn towards the Russian Federation. It isn’t coincidental that Panos Kammenos visited Moscow on 15 January, meeting members of the ruling party, including A K Pushkov, the Chairman of the RF Gosduma Committee on Foreign Affairs. The signals that we’ve already received are very important. Greek television and other media didn’t publicise the statement of Russian Minister of Agriculture N V Fyodorov that if Greece comes under EU pressure, Russia is ready to lift the embargo and begin to buy Greek agricultural products with a 30-year treaty”. Avramidis also described recent statements that Russia plans to build a gas pipeline to supply natural gas to Central and Eastern Europe via Turkey and Greece, and to end the transit of Russian gas to Europe through the Ukraine by 2019 as very important. He said, “These are important issues that we’d advance as a political party. We support the strengthening of relations with Russia in this area”.
27 January 2015
ITAR-TASS
http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/1723617