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The embrace between the extreme left and the extreme righ

03 February 2015 / 11:02:13  GRReporter
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The strange coexistence of the left SYRIZA with the Independent Greeks, with the latter situated substantially to the right on the political spectrum, in the new Greek cabinet has probably puzzled not only the supporters of the two parties.

A week after the announcement of the coalition, many analysts are seeking an interface, while others believe that the speed with which events took place betrays that there had been a plan in the making.

GRReporter presents the analysis of political commentator Plamen Tonchev. He believes that the left-right bipolar model, which dominated Greece for decades, is already dead. Here is what came to take its place:

For a few brief moments, I was puzzled by the tweet of the far-right politician from New Democracy, Failos Kranidiotis, in which he wrote that "if [the Germans] back down, New Democracy will have to give explanations why in 2011 they avoided confrontation and participated in the Papademos government and in everything that followed."

But there was nothing to be puzzled about. The shift of the nationalist right towards SYRIZA should not be a surprise to anyone. It was registered by the first polls after the elections, we can feel it in conversations with many of our friends as well. The very composition of the SYRIZANEL (SYRIZA-Independent Greeks, whose acronym in Greek is Anel) government paved the way to something, which would have been unthinkable until recently, because leftist politcommissars would brandish fatwas against any collaboration with a conspiratorial right.

It is obvious that the upcoming talks with Greece's creditors have fostered a ‘national’ or, in more accurate terms, a national-populist bloc, which transcends party boundaries and tramples under its feet all that is left of the once impregnable strongholds of the left and the right. How could ideologies measure up to today's ‘national unity’ of the type that could be seen in Greek society only during the days of the 2004 European Football Championship!

It is also evident that the end of the bipolar left-right model is not only witnessed in Greece – as the fallout of the proverbial ‘Greek specifics’. Again today, I was intrigued by an article penned by journalist Georgios Kapopoulos in Ethnos titled, What Will Rajoy Do?. In his comment on the Spanish events, the author points out that "the Podemos movement is free from the legacy of the communist or even the socialist left, and thus effectively capable of penetrating much deeper into the right than a formation, which bears the traditional leftist ideological baggage" .

The fact is that the spontaneous movement of Los Indignados, which began on 15 March 2011, at the Puerta del Sol square in Madrid, has found responsive imitators among the discontented in Greece, with all the interactions and subterranean links that have emerged between the left and right on the country’s squares. It is also a fact that in the last elections we saw dyed-in-the-wool right wingers, supporters of New Democracy, or even of Golden Dawn, vote for SYRIZA in the name of a ‘national upsurge’ against the Troika ‘occupiers’, so spectacularly denounced a few days ago by the new national star, Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis.

I won't go into the substance of the negotiations with creditors, because they have so many intricacies I am not familiar with and dare not express an opinion on. Which is why I do not identify with 70 percent of Greek citizens who are convinced that the new government will be able to compel European partners to change their position! I only emphasise the undeniable fact that during this period we witness the official end of the bipolar left-right model, as we knew it in the past.

And I dare say that the new dividing line, which crosses the Greek, and possibly other European societies as well, is a combination of nationalism and isolationism against the desire to innovate and adapt to the demands of the modern world. So let's not waste time with antiquated concepts such as left and right, which have already outlived their welcome. It is time to find more relevant concepts.

Tags: Politics Left Right bipolar model nationalism national populism SYRIZA Independent Greeks
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