Rose thou art sick
The centre left is in sharp decline across Europe
“THEY have disappeared. I don’t even know if they have premises here any more.” In his office overlooking the sun-scorched wharves and cranes of Piraeus, Giorgos Gogos, the head of the dockers’ union, is pondering Pasok, the social-democratic party that for decades dominated the politics of this sprawling Greek port. For years its vote here hovered steadily around 45%. Then came the economic crisis. At the insistence of European institutions the Pasok government agreed to privatise the container terminal at Piraeus. Appalled workers abandoned the party en masse for the far-left and -right, slashing the social-democratic vote to 4% in 2015. Traces of this radicalisation are sprayed across the warehouse walls: hammers and sickles; swastikas; “Piraeus Port Authority in workers’ hands!”. “Why would anyone vote for Pasok now?” asks Kiriakos, a former party activist. “They don’t stand for anything.”
Greece’s economic and political turmoil is unparalleled. But when Mr Gogos jokes that Greece is “Europe on fast-forward” he may have a point. Political scientists looking at Europe’s centre left talk of a continent-wide “Pasokification”. Support for social-democratic parties is collapsing in an unprecedented way.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Rose thou art sick"
From the April 2nd 2016 edition
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