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Better the Right you know

By Simon Tisdall
THE GUARDIAN
Thursday, Oct 08, 2009, Page 9

In voting George Papandreou’s Socialists back into power, Greeks bucked a Europe-wide trend currently favoring the political right that is likely to be capped by a Conservative victory in Britain next year. But in terms of issues that most influenced voter choices, Greece’s general election seems to have largely followed the pattern of other European polls.

The common picture conjured by recent elections in Germany and Portugal, by Ireland’s referendum on the Lisbon treaty and by June’s European parliamentary elections shows national electorates alarmed by international economic storms raging beyond their control. Their response, broadly speaking, has been a vote for stability and familiar faces — and the least amount of financial pain possible.

Greece’s expected deficit this year of 6 percent of GDP, its ballooning national debt and rising joblessness mirrors, in only slightly exaggerated form, the problems facing many of the EU’s 27 member states. The Socialists’ promises to raise taxes on the better-off, protect jobs and launch a 2.5 billion euro (US$3.7 billion) stimulus package were preferred to the outgoing government’s insistence on tough austerity measures.

Nor can Papandreou be easily portrayed as a fresh face wielding a new broom. A former foreign minister, he hails from a political dynasty reaching back generations; his father served two terms as prime minister. His big idea for dealing with Brussels, which views Athens as a chronic offender of eurozone rules, is an old-fashioned-sounding three-year plan that will supposedly balance the books.

LESS SUCCESSFUL

Last month’s elections in Portugal saw another center-left leader, Prime Minister Jose Socrates, fighting less successfully to stem the rightward tide. Although the Socialist party chief held on to power, voters clipped his wings, leaving him heading a minority administration. Their expectation appears to be that he will steer the country through a deepening crisis in the public finances without taking undue risks.

As in the EU parliamentary elections, and in past national elections in the Low Countries and Eastern Europe, militant fringe parties did well in Portugal at the expense of the larger, more established groupings. Big winners were the right-wing Popular party, which came third overall, and the Left Block, an alliance of former Marxists recalling Germany’s Die Linke (The Left).

Portuguese apathy also reflected pan-European trends. Disillusionment with a lack of policy choices from main parties led 40 percent of the electorate to stay home.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s powerful showing in last month’s German election suggested to many analysts that voters interested in stability and continuity at a time of global uncertainty were inclined to invest greater confidence in conservative politicians. In short, capitalism’s crisis was best dealt with by pro-capitalists. At the grassroots level there was no real stomach for a fight and no ideological base from which to mount one.

END OF SOCIALISM

In France, where a right-wing president, Nicolas Sarkozy, dominates and the divided Socialist opposition is in disarray, author and thinker Bernard-Henri Levy rattled cages last summer by declaring the end of socialism.

Asked if the French Socialist party could survive, he said: “It is already dead. No one, or nearly no one, dares to say it. But everyone, or nearly everyone, knows it.”

A key factor in the advance of the Right is said to be the way, like former British prime minister Tony Blair, it has stolen its opponents’ political clothes and launched a determined occupation of the center ground where most voters live. To this end, center-right parties such as Merkel’s Christian Democrats endorse “socialized” healthcare, welfare benefits, industry bailouts and environmental causes, while simultaneously promising prudent, cost-effective governance and lower taxes.

Katinka Barysch of the Center for European Reform said that, broadly speaking, Europeans primarily wanted “economic competence” in their leaders. But this did not necessarily translate into support for the Right, she said.

“People are not in revolutionary mood, but at the same time, they have no particular trust in any particular party or political force ... there is a sense of realism about what is possible. If somebody promises more, they don’t believe it. They’re looking for the tried and tested,” she said.

As usual, EU holdout Norway seems impervious to continental trends. In polls last month, Labour party leader and Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg won a notable re-election victory. His achievement may be linked to Norway’s oil and gas riches. In Oslo, it seems, their biggest problem is what to do with the US$400 billion surplus currently stuffed in the nation’s offshore piggy bank. Now there’s a dilemma.
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