On the 5th of July 2015, a referendum was held in Greece.
The question posed was whether the citizens agreed or not with the proposed
agreement, tabled by the EU-IMF-ECB, that will continue the anti-people
measures worth 8 billion euros.
The governmental majority of SYRIZA-ANEL rejected the
proposal of the KKE for the government’s draft agreement to also be placed
before the judgment of the Greek people in the referendum together with the
issue of abolishing all the anti-people laws that have been passed in recent
years and the issue of disengaging from the EU. At the same time, the coalition
government explained that the NO in the referendum is interpreted by the
government as approval for its own proposed agreement with the EU-IMF-ECB,
which inside 47+8 pages also includes harsh antiworker-antipeople measures,
worth about 8 billion euros.
In these conditions, the KKE called on the workers to
turn their backs on the false dilemma which was being posed in the referendum,
using all appropriate means. The forces of the KKE outside the election centres
handed out its own ballot paper to the voters which said:
NO TO THE PROPOSAL OF THE EU-IMF-ECB
NO TO THE PROPOSAL OF THE GOVERNMENT
DISENGAGEMENT FROM THE EU, WITH THE PEOPLE IN POWER
Of course, it was understood that this ballot paper would
be counted as a spoiled ballot, but together with the blank ballot papers and
the abstention it constitutes a political current that disputes the choices of
the SYRIZA-ANEL government and also of the imperialist organizations, with whom
the government is negotiating for the needs of capital in Greece.
It should be noted that together with the parties of the
coalition government (SYRIZA-ANEL) fascist Golden Dawn also took a position in
favour of the NO,, as well as other small nationalist and ultra-left groups,
like ANTARSYA.
On the other side, the rightwing opposition ND,
social-democratic PASOK that governed until January 2015, together with POTAMI,
KIDHSO (the party of the former Prime Minister G. Papandreou) and other smaller
bourgeois political forces took a position
in favour of a YES which they stated would be interpreted as being consent to
“staying in the EU at all costs”.
In his first statements after the announcement of the
result, D. Koutsoumpas, the GS of the CC of the KKE saluted the thousands of
people who responded to the call of the KKE and did not submit to the
blackmailing dilemmas i.e. those that cast the ballot proposed by the KKE into
the ballot box, a proposal which the government refused to put to the vote in
the Parliament, depriving the people of the right to cast it in a mass way into
the ballot box.
He noted that in relation to the dubious question of the
snap referendum, a section of the people was able to overcome the entrapment
and deception and gave a first response, with the spoiled ballot, and also with
the blank ballot, while some chose abstention from this process.
The GS addressed himself in particular to those who chose
NO, believing that in this way they could stop austerity, that they can answer
the anti-people measures and memoranda in this way. He called on them not to be
complacent and not to consent to the government’s effort to transform this NO
into a YES to new anti-people agreements. He stressed that the KKE extends its
hand to them for the struggles against the deterioration of their lives that
will begin the day after the referendum.
The KKE issued a similar militant call to those who chose
YES under pressure from the big employers, due to fear about closed banks and
fear of the consequences for their salaries, pensions and small savings.
The KKE notes that the negotiations promised by Mr
Tsipras, based on his proposal, will inevitably lead to a new worse memorandum.
The situation highlights the necessity of the movement
and our people adopting the proposal of the KKE for a pro-people way out of the
crisis in a mass and determined way. The KKE will be in the frontline of all
the struggles of our people in the following period, strengthening, from
tomorrow, the anti-monopoly anti-capitalist line of struggle, the rallying
around the KKE.
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