Elections in Greece
The party chairs of DIE LINKE, Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, declare:
We congratulate SYRIZA and Alexis Tsipras for the renewed election victory. Barely eight month after the impressive electoral success of SYRIZA a great part of the Greek electorate is still convinced that in the crisis a left government is better than a return to the old corrupt parties. The old parties' clientele politics nourished oligarchs, while they did not in the least care for the workers, the unemployed youth and old age pensioners during their negotiations with the troika.
The Greek people paid for the austerity policy of the troika with existential hardships and their sovereignty.
We, as DIE LINKE in Germany, support the Europe-wide fight against austerity and for a EU of social justice and economic reason. Within a EU which makes corporations, big banks and super wealthy people richer and richer and therefore cuts the welfare state to pieces and increases poverty, it is the task of the left to demonstrate concrete, internationalist alternatives.
The extremely low voter turnout shows how democracy adverse the policy of EU and troika is - a growing number of people in Greece does not see any scope for individual political activities given the cutting dictates.