Greek voters vent anger towards austerity at ballot box

Guardian
May 6, 2012

Voters in Greece sent tremors across the eurozone on Sunday by recording a massive protest vote against EU-dictated austerity. Parties that had participated in an emergency government tasked with passing deeply unpopular belt-tightening measures in return for rescue loans to prop up the near-bankrupt Greek economy were routed at the ballot box.

Instead, with the recession-hit country lurching deeper into poverty and despair, voters backed groups on the left and right that had virulently opposed the deficit-reduction policies demanded by international creditors.

"This is a message of change, a message to Europe that a peaceful revolution has begun," said Alexis Tsipras, who heads Syriza, a coalition of radical left and green groups that took 16.6% of the vote – the second largest share. "German chancellor Angela Merkel has to know that the politics of austerity have suffered a humiliating defeat."

The reaction from Brussels and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, which have provided bailouts worth €240bn, was silence.

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