WORLD

PASOK wins majority, right forces suffer defeat |

‘With new momentum’, pledges Greek CP

Tribune Combined Services

The June 2 national elections for Greece’s 300-seat
Parliament were a defeat for right wing forces gathered
under the New Democracy Party (NDP) which, while
Increasing its popular vote by just over one percent, fell
far short of the victory many in the West had predicted.

Voting results gave the Panhellenic Socialist Move-
Ment (PASOK) of Premier Andreas Papandreou 161
Seats with 46.5 per cent of the vote, the NDP took 125
Seats with with 40 per cent, the Communist Party of
Greece (KKE) won 13 seats with 9.6 per cent and the
Eurocommunists one seat with 1.6 per cent. Greece’s
complicated unequal voting system gives a decided ad-

In a preliminary comment on the outcome, KKE gen-
eral secretary Charilaos Florakis said that ‘‘it is obvious
that a part of the electorate were influenced by the
‘‘dangerology”’ campaign of PASOK (which raised the
spectre of a return to concentration camps and urged left
voters to abandon the KKE in favor of PASOK), the
inequalities of the electoral process, discrimination,
economic and other measures ...’’ The KKE, while
retaining the 13 seats won in 1981, saw its vote drop by
almost one per cent, a swing which benefitted PASOK.

The real strength of the Communist Party will be seen
not only in the popular movement, but also in the un-
avoidable political realignments which will follow the

vantage to ‘‘leading’’ parties, providing outright gifts of —— election, said Florakis.

Seats. Given the popular vote, for example, the KKE
Would today have 30 members.

In a front-page story June 3, titled ‘‘With New
Momentum’’, the KKE newspaper ‘‘Risospastis”’

mmunist Party! (KKE),
says this election banner in Greece which i
saw a return of Premier Papandreou’s |
Panhellenic Socialist Movement with a |
majority June 2. New political realignments |
will be seen, the KKE says, to signal a
course for real change.

wrote: “‘The struggle for change continues with new
Tmmentum, with new optimism and strength; with the
suength of the Communist Party which was not ex-
pressed in the electoral results, but will express itself in
political life.

““Yesterday’s election results show that PASOK
grabbed a part of the left vote by surpassing every prece-
dent in dishonesty and anti-democratic behavior, both
by the electoral procedures and by creating a climate of
fear and pressures.

“With those votes, but mainly by the theft of the
legitimate seats in Parliament of the Communist Party,
because of the electoral law, PASOK ensured itself 161
seats. The NDP increased its forces, taking some votes
from PASOK ...

‘These results show that the main electoral goal of
PASOK was to shrink the left forces, but:

e ‘This goal was only achieved in minimal terms.
PASOK’s aim of the ‘disappearance’ of the left did not
succeed. The Communist vote was only slightly smaller
than in 1981 (10.4 per cent in 1981 compared to 9.6 per
cent in 1985).

e ‘The real strength of the Communist Party, which
was increased by its unity campaign, will appear and
triumph in the popular movements and in the coming
political realignments. PASOK’s go-it-alone policy, the
intensity of Greece’s problems, the conservative out-
look of PASOK all ensure that the popular movements
will develop and political-realignments will take place.

““With the decisive participation of the KKE and its
dependable unity policy, the June 2 electoral resutls will
not become a stage for conservative development in
Greece, but will signal a new course for real change —
based on the militant, people’s intervention and wider
cooperation of Communist with radical socialist forces
for such change.”’

When elected in 1981, PASOK committed its govern-
ment to pull Greece out of NATO and the European
Economic Community, a promise it has yet to fulfill. The
KKE and other left forces have pledged to continue their
struggle to press re-elected Premier Papandreou and
PASOK to carry out these commitments and stand by its
promise to remove U.S. military bases from Greece by
1988.

a

International Focus

Tom Morris

Their youth

Young Soviet Jews are in a
“wretched human __pre-
dicament”’, Canada’s UN am-
bassador told the National
Council of Jewish Women in
| Toronto, May 23. Later in the
| evening symbolic diplomas
| were handed out to draw atten-
tion, said organizers, to the
Problems ‘‘refusnik’”? youth
have in getting an education in
the USSR.

Stephen Lewis and his hosts
Might have performed a ser-
vice had they focussed on

Canada Manpower Centre
a Centre de -doeuvre du Ganada

Canadian youth pees and
handed out a few diplomas to
and ours the hundreds of thousands

here who are denied higher

education.
They might have also of-
fered some hope of work to the

alarming number of Canadian ~

youth dispossessed and aban-
doned by the system. But that
would have been too close to
the bone for the so-called so-
cial democrat who makes his
living as a Mulroney mouth-
piece. :

A Soviet child almost cer-
tainly will attend kindergarten.
He will have his basic educa-
tion free. He will be able to
attend university or vocational
school free. He will receive a
government stipend while
doing so. If he selects on-the-
job training, he will receive full
wages.

Working youth can study
part time (43 per cent do).
Young families get generous
housing and child assistance.
Their rent does not exceed 3-5
per cent of their income. —

State loans for cooperative
members for housing construc-
tion carry an annual 0.5 per
cent interest rate. In rural areas
90 per cent of building costs
may be borrowed and, after 50
per cent is repaid, the other 50
per cent is picked up by the
state or cooperative.

All receive vacations with
pay. All receive maternity
leave with pay. Everyone gets
free medicare. There is no
unemployment.

This (and more) applies to
every Soviet youth — Jewish
and non-Jewish, Christian and
non-Christian, Muslim and

non-Muslim, Communist and.

non-Communist — _ = an
achievement unheard of out-

side the socialist world.

Stephen Lewis should take
his ‘‘youth crusade’’ roadshow
to Newfoundland or to north-
ern Canada’s Native youth. He
should depart the pleasant
streets of north Toronto for the
city’s core, the Manpower of-
fices and youth hostels.

There’s where he could ©

chatter about education and
jobs and see a wretched human
predicament.

The Prince
and the people

This is for all you Mon-
archists.

The Toronto Star reports on
the 3-day visit by Prince Phillip
to Ottawa and Toronto begin-
ning June 4 to present some-
thing called the Duke of Edin-
burgh Awards. Here’s what a
Prince of the Realm does:

Arriving at CFB Uplands,
Ottawa, he ‘‘will leave imme-

diately for Rideau Hall and a
private luncheon with Gover-
nor-General Sauve.”’ In To-
ronto ‘‘the Prince will dine at
the Royal Canadian Yacht
Club at a private reception.”
He then ‘“‘goes to Queen’s
Park for a private luncheon
with Lieutenant-Governor
Aird ... All day Thursday he
will attend private sessions of
the International Awards
Forum before he meets pre-
mier Frank Miller for a private
dinner at Ontario Place.”’

Caught in
the act

In April, 1985, Pretoria an-
nounced with 2 Yourish that it
had withdrav::: the last of its
troops from Angola. Reagan’s
eminence gris, Chester Crock-
er, trumpeted the announce-
ment as a triumph for Washing-
ton’s “‘constructive engage-
ment’’ policy. Everyone else
waited.

The wait was short. Last
week a South African Army
commando unit was trapped
inside Angola and its com-
mander, Captain Wynand Pet-
rus du Toit, captured.

At a news conference in
Luanda, du Toit explained his
mission: to blow up the
Malongo oil refinery, a com-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 12, 1985 e 9

plex jointly owned by Gulf Oil
and Angola’s state company,
Sonangol. The strike, said du
Toit, was to cause
‘considerable economic set-
back”’ to Angola by wrecking
Sonangol which processes half
the country’s crude oil.

Predictably, Pretoria denied
du Toit’s story. General Con-
stand Viljoen said South Africa
simply has military units in
Angola on ‘‘reconnaissance
and information-gathering”’
missions. General Viljoen then
announced his retirement.

The point is: ‘‘constructive
engagement” is simply a U.S.
licence for apartheid to tighten
its grip at home and continue
attacks abroad.

ONG re