Three elections today

[Eric]

It may not have impinged on the consciousness of people living on other continents but in Europe there have been three elections today (Sunday, 6th May 2012). The French presidential election, now won by the socialist candidate Francois Hollande. The Greek parliamentary election, won by the conservative Nea Dimokratia, but the left-wing Syriza now having a bigger share of the vote than the socialist Pasok, who were in government. And the Serbian election, whose results I'm not so clear about.

But it shows that there is a lot of political activity over here in Europe.

[MichaelS]

Serbian election news here (a good guide if, like me, you don't know much about the different parties): http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/wor...150360595.html

An interesting day in Europe. And thank god Sarkozy's gone

[Eric]

One small addition that might sober up the new rulers of France, Greece, and Serbia: the euro fell at the French and Greek news; Serbia doesn't affect that currency one way or the other, because it's not in the European Union. But this currency fall in value should remind the new bosses that these elections are part of real life, not just an exercise in hubris and victory-V signs.

I'll have a look at the details of the Serbian parties soon.

[Threetrees]

Everything will be the same, I think. But we still hope for the better future being in 50/50 clash. People are again given a chance to choose nothing out of nothing. Regarding the past and the present of Francois Hollande, I don't believe in great changes.



But people hope, young and old. A couple watches the first televised presidential debate at Mexico City's main Zocalo plaza, Sunday, May 6, 2012. Next July 1, Mexico will hold presidential elections. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

[Liam]

Between Hollande and Sarkozy, I'd go for Le Pen, . France is fucked.

[Eric]

We will have to see whether France as a nation changes in any way. The big problem is squaring it with Germany regarding measures to keep the euro on track. A stable euro is important for the whole of Europe, within or outside the Eurozone.

As for Greece, they are a sideshow. They seem to be in a pretty chaotic mess, with no one accepting any form of austerity and even a couple of ultra-right members of parliament now. The Greeks appear to have no sense of reality. They accepted borrowing, high salaries, and early retirement for state workers, but the country didn't budget for it at all, so it would seem. And now people are protesting blindly against everything and everybody, and are avoiding taking the blame themselves.

Too many immature people want some scapegoat to beat up. But in many cases they should belabour their own backs.

[Eric]

Regarding Greece, the editorial in my local paper Upsala Nya Tidning (Sweden) written by Susanne Nyström sums its woes up quite succinctly (my translation):

For several decades, Greece has been mismanaged by the social-democratic party Pasok and the conservative New Democracy. Between the two of them they have run the economy into the ground, while corruption flourished, unemployment figures hit new records and a large proportion of the economy has consisted of bribery. During this time the public sector was overmanned and checks were as good as non-existent, so that even dead people received a pension.

The result was that the national debt ended up at 160% of BNP, which was revealed when the bubble burst and the Greek government was obliged to lay its cards on the EU table. Since then, the EU and IMF have been pumping money into the country to keep the system afloat. The condition was, however, that those who had rocked the boat accept a colossal savings package and got the implementation of tax collection sorted out.

That's what I mean by real life. If those of you who are students, living on loans or parental contributions, ran your finances as Greece has done, you would soon be forced to stop studying literary theory & aesthetics and work in McDonalds for a couple of years to pay off the debt. Because a student, like a country, cannot actually go bankrupt, while a company can.

All those people protesting on the streets may appeal to the student revolutionary in you, but these Greeks cannot help themselves, and most of the other EU countries are very reluctant to pour money down the drain helping fantasy merchants to continue to indulge in building castles in the air.