Analysis
byYIANNIS MAVRIS
Tracking the ongoing post-election decline
In parliamentary elections in 2012, voter disapproval of both government parties was unprecedented. PASOK was punished more severely for Greece’s recourse to the IMF and the signing of the first Memorandum, two years earlier. The party was crushed at the polls, receiving just 13.2% (833,527 votes) and even less in repeat elections in June (755,868, 12.3%). The first percentage was even lower than what the party had polled when it first appeared on the Greek political scene in 1974 (13.4%).
The May elections signaled the end of post-dictatorship PASOK’s political cycle. From parliamentary elections in October 2009, when George A. Papandreou triumphantly returned to power with 43.9% (3,012,373 votes) and in just 30 months, the party lost 2.2 million votes, a figure that represents 31% of the active electorate (i.e. of those who voted) in 2009. This undoubtedly marks the greatest voter shift ever seen in the country’s electoral history following the restoration of democracy in 1974.
Remaining strongholds
However, despite its historic defeat, there were areas (traditional bastions) where it continued to secure a sizeable percentage of the vote and it remained a political force at a national level. PASOK retained substantial support primarily in rural areas of the country, where it polled 16%. (It is known that electoral shifts in the countryside usually come with a delay of one election cycle). Out of the total 1,034 municipalities in the country, in 137 it retained vote shares of over 20%(figure 1). In May, it polled over 18% in two regions (Crete 18.6%, East Macedonia-Thrace 18.4% – thanks to voter support from the Muslim minority of Rhodope) and in two others over 16% (Western Greece 16.2%, Epirus 16.4%). In June, it secured over 20% in three prefectures (Lasithi 23.9%, Rethymno 21.7%, Rhodope 20.5%), but the party retained shares of over 15% in just 11 prefectures (e.g. Grevena 19.3%, Chios 19%, Heraklio 18.6%, Evrytania 18%, Thesprotia 17.5%).
In contrast, PASOK literally collapsed in urban centers (11% in June), especially the capital, where it polled just 8.5%. In the predominantly working class districts of the western suburbs and Piraeus, where it had secured an absolute majority in 1981 and over 43% in 2009, it now failed to surpass 10%. By way of indication, the party polled 8% in Peristeri (50.9% in 1981), 9% in Aigaleo (52.7% in 1981), 7.9% in Nikaia (48.3%) and 8% in Keratsini (53.7%).
In 2012, PASOK’s (remaining) electoral base displayed similar social characteristics to that of New Democracy. It too drew most of its support from pensioners (20%), the elderly (21%, the party’s top socio-economic category), rural residents (16%) but also a segment of the financially secure (17%). Its support among the salaried, which once exceeded 50% (and 44% in 2009), now plummeted to just 7-10% (figure 2).
In demographic terms, PASOK’s voter base proved to be (like ND’s) aged. Among voters aged 65 and over it polled 21%, and 14% amongst those aged 55-64. These two age groups account for 67% of PASOK’s voters.
Post-election course
The decline in support for the party did not end with the elections. On the contrary, it accelerated. The political result of PASOK’s historic electoral defeat in May and June, in the months that followed, was the withdrawal of support by even more of its traditional voters. The unprecedented decision to abolish the party’s organizational structure, which was suddenly imposed just a few days after the elections, sealed the degeneration and dissolution of the historical party form. In March 2012, before the parliamentary electoral contest, a total of236,151members and supporters of PASOK (according to official figures) took part in the process of electing its current leader. Following the election of Evangelos Venizelos, PASOK cadres and party-affiliated newspapers were optimistic: “The unexpectedly high level of participation in the vote directly calls into question all recent opinion poll findings, since the number of participants corresponds to approximately 3.5%of the electorate. Consequently, on the basis of the appropriate ‘extrapolations’, PASOK’s base line today would be around 22%” (TA NEA newspaper, 19/3/2012). However, despite the exuberant expectations of the party-affiliated press, in the elections that followed, just two months later, instead of polling the anticipated 22%, PASOK was in for an unpleasant surprise.
In March 2013, one year after Venizelos’ election as party president and nine months after national elections and the announcement of the party conference, PASOK’s 9th ‘Constitutional’ Congress was finally held. Now, only 112,016 members and supporters of the remnants of PASOK participated in the process of electing party representatives (figure 3).This number of participants in party affairs provides a further safe indication of the party’s post-election support, irrespective of opinion polls, which are in any case in agreement. On the basis of the historically shaped ratio of voters to members-supporters (3.5:1) and assuming that abstention remains at the levels recorded in the most recent elections, then PASOK’s remaining voters today must not exceed 400-430,000, which translates into just 6.5%-7% of the electorate, i.e. half its voter share in the last election. And opinion poll figures are indeed in line with this assessment: Since last October, the party’s voter support suddenly fell to levels that never exceeded 8%, whilst in the last two months, before the ERT crisis, it had dropped to 6.5%(figure 4). The party’s post-election collapse in opinion polls was followed by the rapid deterioration in the standing of Evangelos Venizelos. Positive opinions about the party leader fell from 32-34% before the elections to 20-24% after the elections.
New demographics
The demographic dimensions of PASOK’s ongoing – during the 12 months following elections – social marginalization are presented in figure 2 and are quite revealing. The party’s estimated electoral support among voters below the age of 55 is 3-5%. In the two age groups over 55, it retains shares of 8% and 11% respectively, though in these too it has suffered considerable losses (6-10%). PASOK’s support among pensioners, from 20% in the elections, fell by one half (-10%), whilst as expected, the withdrawal of support from voters in rural areas accelerated after the elections. By no means fortuitously, the only socio-economic category of the active population in which its support (7%) remains above the average, is public sector salaried employees (figure 2).
The present party formation retains only the shell of the historic party. Essentially, it is a new leader-driven party of officials and employees at different levels of the state machinery or elderly voters who historically have strongly identified with the party, in areas considered to be strongholds outside the main urban centers, whom the successor of the Papandreou family has managed to stabilize at a minimum level of social-electoral support; support that will not easily shrink further unless there are major political developments. At the same time, at an elementary organizational level, the party continues to mobilize a few tens of thousands of ‘members and friends’ at a local level, as happened recently with the election of new prefectural committees.Unlike the case of verbose rhetoric,such a political formation can be maintained and reproduce itself solely through its participation in the possession of power. For this reason, PASOK’s taking part and remaining in the coalition government of Antonis Samaras has benefitted the party considerably.
The stabilization of the new party of Evangelos Venizelos at these (low) levels has made it easy for PASOK to remain an active player in the political game, as a ‘component’, either of the ‘pro-Memorandum’ party’ or of the center-left that is currently undergoing reconstitution, as well as to organize its international alliances and, at the same time, to retain its capacity of government partner, in the new multi-party system now taking shape.
Quite ironically, immediately after the May elections, the new PASOK leader himself attributed the party’s electoral disaster and ‘decay’ to its ‘governmentalism’, whilst simultaneously announcing the dismantling of the ‘old’ party and its ‘rebirth’ from scratch. This, of course, in no way prevented the party’s unconditional – and without regard for the notorious ‘policy agenda agreement’ – participation in the three-party government, nor its engagement today in a more vigorous, and this time with no policy agreement, ‘governmentalism’.
Date of publication: 27/06/2013
Publication: Newspaper “ΕΦΗΜΕΡΙΔΑ ΤΩΝ ΣΥΝΤΑΚΤΩΝ ”