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Anastasia Balezdrova

When former Prime Minister George Papandreou proposed a referendum for or against Greece to stay in the euro area, he was hardly aware that half a year later, the Greeks would face exactly this dilemma. Within a few hours, two alliances for joint participation in the early parliamentary elections on 6 May were announced. Interestingly, in both cases the union is between yesterday's ideological opponents, representatives of the left and right. However, the union between them is not surprising to anyone.

Yiannis Dimaras, who was disaffiliated with PASOK, as he voted against the first memorandum of financial aid to Greece and then, established his own party called "Arma politon" ("Civil war machine") has joined the "Independent Greeks" of Panos Kamenos - former deputy and minister in the governments of New Democracy. Late last night, some of his fellows in "Arma politon" blamed him for this move but he explained, "I had agreed with Alexis Tsipras, but the proposed cooperation was not accepted by SYRIZA."

Yiannis Dimaras said he had discussed 14 political principles with all parties except the Communist party, but reached an agreement with none of them. "We continued to try to join forces against the memorandum," he said and denied  having been allied with Panos Kamenos to only secure a seat in parliament. He said that the ballots of the "Independent Greeks" will involve 40 members of "Arma politon" and that those who did not agree with his choice were "only two or three persons."

Earlier today, the pre-election union between the Unified People's Front (EPAM) of the economist Dimitris Kazakis and the party "Democratic revival" of the former deputy and minister in the governments of PASOK Stelios Papatemelis was announced too. The union has the emblematic name "No", which is inevitably associated with the historic "no" said by the dictator Ioannis Metaxas.

In his brief introduction, Dimitris Kazakis clarified that the goal of his party is to work well with any other political formation, "whether left or right, in order to eliminate the illegal regime governing us today. We are not a party against the memorandum. We are against the occupation of the country. Whatever the outcome, we will be here again the day after the election."

The aim of the cooperation is to overthrow the current political system, which they say has led the country to the current state, the punishment of perpetrators and seizure of their property, and the immediate payment of war reparations from Germany. Some of their proposals to the electorate are a referendum on whether Greece should stay or leave the euro area, stopping payments to creditors, withdrawing loan agreements and memoranda of economic assistance, and change in Constitution.

Other smaller parties, many of which had participated in other election races with very little success, also joined the two parties.

Interesting is the fact that the representatives of all these formations said how close they were to uniting with "Independent Greece." In the case of EPAM, according to Dimitris Kazakis, Panos Kamenos’ proposal was that candidates should be included in the ballot of his party. "Of course, we refused and I would not like to say the things we were proposed. I can only say that some of us would get rich if we had agreed."

Stelios Papatemelis even said that his talks with Panos Kamenos were so advanced that they had even set the day and hour for announcing the beginning of their cooperation. "Two hours before the agreed time, he called me and said that the party did not agree with our proposals and in return, he offered me to join "Independent Greeks" and we refused."

The smaller party "Greek state" said that it had lost five members, who headed to Panos Kamenos’ party. One member of "Arma politon" said that Yiannis Dimaras had unsuccessfully tried to work with the leader of "Independent Greeks" until last weekend. Then, he required from his other supporters to follow him in the alliance with Panos Kamenos. He said the party had tried to achieve cooperation with the left coalition SYRIZA but it did not agree and "there were opponents to this idea among us."

The former rector of the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Maria-Delia, was presented at the press conference. She said that the memorandum was taking Greece to a disaster and added "we have to first chase out our dynasts and then, we will have time to decide whether our programme will take a left or right direction."

The leaders of the new union accused the media of blackout, because they do not present them. The EPAM leader even said that "when legality in the country is restored, along with traitors will have to be condemned those who make propaganda in their favour as well as in favour of the occupiers."