Antenna: News in English (PM), 98-10-19

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From: Antenna Radio <http://www.antenna.gr> - email: [email protected]

Last Updated: Monday, 19-Oct-98 22:16:29

CONTENTS

[01] Elections

[02] Preveza-Elections

[03] Pangalos

[04] Amartya Sen

[01] Elections

Pasok saw the number of its prefectural seats drop dramatically; the ruling party also failed to win any of the mayoral contests in the nation's three largest cities.

Sizing up Pasok's poor showing in the elections Prime minister Kostas Simitis said there are many messages.

Simitis said in some places there was poor work by Pasok, in coordinating campaigns and ensuring the party supporters voted for the party ticket.

There were also cases where Pasok's selection of candidates wasn't what it could've been, he added.

But Simitis insists that Pasok remains the dominant political force in the country.

And he accuses the other parties of ganging up against it in the local elections.

Pasok traditionally counts on left-wing votes when it comes down to voters choosing either Pasok or New Democracy.

But that clearly didn't happen this time.

He compared the situation to 1989, when the Communist Party joined forces with New Democracy in an unholy alliance to form a government when Pasok was reeling from a financial scandal.

Some observers say that Pasok's poor showing is a protest vote against the government's relentless economic austerity policies.

There may be some truth in that.

But other observers point out that it doesn't explain the strong showing turned in by New Democracy, a conservative party which often

criticises the government for not going far enough in implementing tough or unpopular economic policies.

It also doesn't explain strange turnarounds in the first round of voting and the second round. Some candidates did well the first Sunday, only to lose on the second Sunday.

New Democracy leader Kostas Karamanlis, like many analysts, believes there are deeper reasons behind the way the voters cast their ballots.

He says the lines that traditionally separated the parties voters from each other have been erased - by the voters themselves. "Today's voters are freer of party colours than every before", he explains. "People are formulating new political outlooks, on the basis of where they feel the country should be going".

One thing is certain, the political map is changing. Not only is there much cross-voting, but in mayoral races, there were sixty different cross-party alliances in races around the country.

Former prime minister Constantinos Mitsotakis calls the election results a strong message to all the parties, but particularly the government. Voters are upset because politicians don't tell them the whole truth, says Mitsotakis. He says the government has been censured most strongly by the voters for that. "The finance minister's smiling face and continual insistence that everything fine isn't good enough", maintains Mitsotakis.

Mitsotakis also sees that there seem to be fundamental changes taking place in voting patterns. He says what's needed now is for the parties to clarify the differences between them on important issues, so voters can clearly see which party best expresses their views.

New Democracy-backed candidates have rolled back Pasok's hold on county, or prefectural government. Pasok won forty-one of the nation's fifty county seats in 1994 - this time, they've got just twenty- four.

The prize in Sunday's second round of balloting were the Athens-Piraeus and Thessaloniki seats.

Voters went to the polls to elect thirty-six of the countries prefects, or governors, Sunday. Only six had been elected in the first round of voting on October 11th, forcing a number of run offs.

What Pasok feared after the first Sunday of voting came true on the second Sunday of voting: the ruling party has lost one of its local government strongholds: the prefectural, or county, seats picture changed dramatically Sunday. Pasok not only saw its number of prefects dwindle from 41 to 24; it lost some key seats.

In Athens-Piraeus, Theodoros Katrivanos, the man backed by New Democracy and Political Spring, won an easy victory over Pasok's Evangelos Kouloubis.

Katrivanos picked up 54 per cent of the vote to Kouloubis's 46 per cent.

In Thessaloniki, Pasok's Kostas Papadopoulos eeked out only the narrowest of victories over Christos Koskinas, who ran on the New Democracy-Political Sping ticket.

It was one of the few bright spots for Pasok.

In another of the large prefectures, that taking in the cities of Drama, Kavala, and Xanthi, New Democracy and Political Spring were triumphant. Constantinos Tatsis beat Pasok's Pavlos Papadopoulos there.

If there are winners and losers in these elections, Pasok is clearly the loser - New Democrcay elected 375 mayors to Pasok's 361.

Traditional Pasok strongholds of Patra and Hania have fallen to New Democracy and the parties it allied itself with.

But despite the Pasok setbacks, many of the candidates who emerged triumphant, like many observers, sense that something more profound is changing in the way people vote.

And with voters' party colours appearing to fade to more moderate hues, for many of the victors in the local elections, the buzzword isn't "triumph", but "consensus".

Theodoros Katrivanos, the winner in the Athens- Piraeus prefecture race, says the age of pragmatic alliances between parties is over. All Greeks have the same problems today".

In a simliar vein, Athens mayor Dimitris Avrampoulos says "This is the age of mutual understanding".

[02] Preveza-Elections

Meaning that the court will decide what will happen by drawing straws.

There are two possibilities: either the lottery winner will serve the full term, or they'll split it, the lottery winner serving the first two terms and his opponent serving the last two.

Giorgos Kaouris of Pasok and New Democracy-backed theology professor Nikolaos Sbonias were dealing with the deadlock with equanimity.

Kaouris, currently a country prefect, said, "It's a tie, so we'll just have to follow the legal course - whatever the outcome, local government will be the winner", he added magnanimously.

[03] Pangalos

Pangalos and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov will discuss the situation in Kosovo and the Cyprus issue.

Russia's decision to sell Cyprus S-300 ground-to- air missiles over Turkish objections will certainly be raised.

The Cypriot government wants the missiles to deter aggression from Turkey, and has Greece's backing in making the acquisition.

Turkey has threatened to do whatever is necessary to stop Cyprus from deploying the missiles, even if that means destroying the missile sites.

Russia has said it would come to Cyprus's aid in the face of a Turkish attack, if Cyprus so requested.

Sources say Pangalos and Ivanov will also discuss military cooperation between their countries during their meeting, though the issue is not formally on the agenda.

[04] Amartya Sen

Sen is here just one week after receiving the coveted prize. He is scheduled to give a conference in the parliament entitled, 'The Political Element in Economic Development' on Tuesday.

Possessing a unique way of combining philosophy and economics, economist Amartya Sen has spent his life studying the world's poor, suggesting new ways that governments can help them.

The 64 year old master at Britain's Trinity College in Cambridge said his Nobel prize winning work incorporated factors such as income distribution and health in measuring poverty.

Working with the theory of 'social choice' he explores how different individuals' welfare is affected by collective decisions.

Sen said he analyzed the causes of catastrophes such as famines, and ways to include the very poor in evaluating a nation's overall economic situation. Adding, 'This gives recognition to problems of poverty and equality and in general the interests of the people placed at the downside of the economy'.

When asked about his interests in the dynamics of famine, Sen told reporters it was spurred by his own experience during India's famine in 1943, when he was 9. He added, 'Times were difficult when I was a child. I come from a country with a lot of problems, mainly poverty. It was rumoured then that the food supply was not very low, nevertheless a famine occurred. That period in my life has left me with many unpleasant memories. I have made a conscious effort to analyse that part of my life in my work'.

He also referred to the late Pasok founder Andreas Papandreou, whom he met during his last visit to Greece in 1963. He recalled, 'We spent about two weeks together and had many discussions. I like his economic theory. I often refer to Andreas Papandreou in my lectures'.

Before making his home in Britain, Sen was a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard, where he still has an office and remains a professor emeritus.

(c) ANT1 Radio 1998

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