National Unity government to be formed in Greece / Greek General Elections

[Ephilant]

Well then, who said creative government was a thing of the past? It looks like Greece will have a coaliton government that is not a coalition.
Both PASOK and DemLeft have decided not to put people forward for cabinet posts, leaving it toatlly up to Samaras (ND) and "trusted individuals" to take up the posts.
What does Samaras do? Promptly creates 2 new ministeries, probably to reward to "trusted individuals" for services rendered. And while he plays PM in Greece and deals with the mess created by PASOK/ND over the last 30 years or so, Venizelos and Kouvelis go cap in hand to Brussels/Berlin to take orders from the real bosses and maybe bring back sone weets if Greece behaves like a good little country, doing what it is told to do.
And in doing so, they actually become the real power, Samaras is left with the task to do what they relate he has to do, and if they don't like what he does, they can pull the plug at any given time without losing face. Cute whore-dom is not just an Irish way of doing things!

[Ephilant]

Greece has got talent is over, and we have a winner, for now. Samaras has taken the title, and will be sworn in at 6.30 this evening. How long for we don't know. Who will be in the cabinet, we don't know, has he got a deal with Simon Cowell, we don't know. But he will be the happioest man on earth to finally have realised his dream of being PM of Greece.
Good for him, not too sure it will be good for us though...

[ang]

Ah any news on this @Ephilant - Possibly a Government of "technocrat" Ministers?

DJ FX Trader
#Greece Banker Rapanos Named As New Finance Minister, Says Dow Jones Source

[Ephilant]

Ah any news on this @Ephilant - Possibly a Government of "technocrat" Ministers?

well we don't know yet. What we do know is these are not technocrats. They are "trustworthy individuals"

Like the newly proposed Minister for Transport, who is a Chrysi Avgi defector, this time standing for ND. Doesn't make him less of a fascist, just a little more palatable. Or so Samaras thinks...

[fluffybiscuits]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...fascism-greece

A victory for Golden Dawn , New Democracy ?

[Ephilant]

It's official, as of today, Greece has a doormat as PM. May there be many dirty feet, so it wears too thin fast!

[Ephilant]

We have a PM, and that's about all. rumours abound that there are serious shouting matches about who gets to do what. Between the coalition partners, but also internally within each party.
Looks like Venizelos' "play it safe sam" policy is about to back fire seriously. Amongst others Andreas Loverdos, previous minister for Health, is very vocal in his opposition to being sidelined after doing "a perfect job". And he seems to have quite some support.
Same story within DemLeft apparently. they had a meeting lasting till about 4.00 am in which they tried to reach consensus on who they would propose for government.
Both PASOK and DemLeft have decided not to put any elected MP forward for the jobs, but appoint "trusted individuals" instead.
We sere told we would know by 10.00am, then 11, then 12, then 13.00,....

[HarmlessPoorOulDivil]

Thank you for your very informative posts Ephilant.

A person relying on MMS would be happily unaware of the links between ND and Golden Dawn.

[riposte]

Thank you for your very informative posts Ephilant.

A person relying on MMS would be happily unaware of the links between ND and Golden Dawn.

+100% ....... and welcome to the forum HarmlessPoorOulDivil

[Ephilant]

Well, thank you ladies and gentlemen, you are welcome. If one of my posts results in an extra nail in the coffin of Chrysi Avgi, then it will all have been worth it. And if it can be a 6" nail, even better

Meanwhile, we still don't have any ministers, just a lot of shouting. Now even rumours the coalition won't last

[Ephilant]

Is it white smoke, or playing for time.
Certain ministries have been allocated, strangely enough, all the ministers are ND. Reports are saying that quite a few people refused the post offered. Not too keen on taking poisoned chalices any more are our politicians. One of the strangest confirmed positions is Panos Panagiotopoulos as minister for Defense. He is an ex-journalist who couldn't hack it as a journalist and decided to go into the much more lucrative business of politics. Seems like it paid off for him but Defense? I wonder, do the French see him as a soft touch for more hardware, Made in France of course?

[HarmlessPoorOulDivil]

Isn't Defence a bit of a Hot Topic in Greece at the moment? A senior General (I think) made some ambiguous remarks recently. Where would this Panagiotopoulos guy stand, I wonder. Or does it matter, is he just a figurehead?


(Thanks for the welcome Riposte - another thing I like about this forum is the courtesy )

[Ephilant]

indeed, welcome. Have a nice glass of Ouzo with a drop of honey on me.

Is a minister ever anything other than a figure head? And especially here in Greece. Our guys just have the knack of doing a nice bit on the side, not just your average nixer.
Good old Panos is not just your average journalist. He is of the right breeding, having worked for Sky, FM100.4, Star TV, Antenna 1, but also contributiong to Kathimerini, Eleptfheros, and some other beautifully obliging right and even furhter right wing tv, radio and newspaper outlets. He is also a lawyer (of course) specializing in Criminal and/or Company Law (), and one of the heads of the ND-jugend ONNED. No fear of the military being denied new toys from this guy. He is currently the presenter of "Profile", a current affairs programme that would not give proper airtime to anything further left than DemLeft during the last elections. I suppose this is payback?
Of course, he could just be twarted in his job by non other than the EU themselves. More and more voices are going off in Brussels that in order to catch up with time lost, Greece is going to have to make further significant cuts (12 - 16 billion) and the military budget is openly being targetted by many of them. This will not go down well with France who are one of biggest death merchants around and have always found very willing "advocates" in Greek ministers for Defence, the previous one, Akis Tsochatzopoulos, being one of the best ones they ever had. He had such a party that the authorities simply could not do anything else but jail him, his wife and his daughter. Between them they have defrauded Greece for not millions but billions.

[Ephilant]

We have white smoke!
Samaras has just announced his cabinet. One of the 3 (!) junior ministers for Health is female, and so is the m inister for Tourism. For the rest, jobs for the boys. Including a ship owner as minister for Maritime affairs. Fat chance of these guys paying their way like everybody else...
We even have a minister appointed, but without portolio. Dimitris Stamatis is appointed, but there is no ministery for him. I wonder what it feels like to be appointed "spare". But then, at 100,000 a year, does it really matter if you do a tap or simply pretend to do something?
their first task? find 11 billion extra in cuts. Second task? find 16 billion in extra cuts to make up for lost time.
something tells me we can expect pyrotechnics soon...

[Ephilant]

I was having a little look at our "Trustworhty, responsible people", now ministers in the doormats' government. It doesn't make for pretty reading.
I suppose everybody at this stage knows about the Goldman Sachs involvement with the Costas Simitis government cooking the books and getting Greece accepted as a Eurozone member in 2000 with full membership in 2001?
Well then, one of the financial advisors to that government was a certain Vassilis Rapanos. He was also the chairman of the board of directors of OTE, our version of Eircom (and in as bad a state), Governor of the National Mortgage Bank of Greece which later merged with the National Bank of Greece, Consultant to the Permanent Greek Delegation to the EU (the guys who kept saying Jawohl and did their own thing anyway).

He is the new Minister for Finance.

Another fine example of trustworthy responsible individual is Kostas Mousouroulis. Who says you? Indeed. He is the new Minister for Maritime affairs, supposed to regulate this rather gungho business together with his Deputy Nikos Vernikos. Mousouroulis is the elected representative for Chios and Oinousses, which just so happens to be the home of a fair whack of the Greek non tax-paying shipping families. In fact, Vernikos is a shipowner.

these where the people SYRIZA was going to make pay tax for the first time in their lives. They now have the "task" of regulating their business through new legislation....

Dimitris Avramopoulos was the minister for Health and Social Solidarity from 2006 - 2009. This was the ND government of Kostas Karamanlis, generally credited with bankrupting Greece and putting it on the road it is now. He was also the interim Minister for defense, the man of the "big roar".

He is now minister for Foreign affairs.

And the story goes on and on. It would seem that Samaras has use this opportunity to reward all those who helped him topple the Karamanlis government with plush posts.

It is obvious that the EU is going to seriously regret manipulating the elections in the way they did. the only question is how much are they going to regret it for...