Conservative wins in Greece
A new conservative Greek prime minister took office today following a strong election victory yesterday over the incumbent leftist government.
Conservative party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis was being sworn in as Greece’s new prime minister Monday, a day after his resounding win over left-wing Alexis Tsipras, who led the country through the tumultuous final years of its international bailouts.
Mitsotakis’ New Democracy party won 39.8% of the vote, giving him 158 seats in the 300-member parliament, a comfortable governing majority. Tsipras’ Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, garnered 31.5%. The extremist right-wing Golden Dawn, Greece’s third largest party during the height of the financial crisis, failed to make the 3% threshold to enter parliament. [emphasis mine]
This conservative victory probably is more about with the pain caused during Greece’s recent financial crisis, under leftist rule, and less about rejecting leftist policies. Greece had become bankrupt after decades of bad policy at the top by everyone, and the tough love required to get them out of that hole was almost certainly the reason the left lost.
Still, this election continues a general worldwide trend in the world’s democracies, whereby the voters reject the status quo by throwing an incumbent out of office for a new face. The trend also suggests that the new face has a golden opportunity to change that status quo, in a radical manner.
Note that the status quo for the past half century has been increased centralized power by governments. Can anyone guess what a change from that would be?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
A new conservative Greek prime minister took office today following a strong election victory yesterday over the incumbent leftist government.
Conservative party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis was being sworn in as Greece’s new prime minister Monday, a day after his resounding win over left-wing Alexis Tsipras, who led the country through the tumultuous final years of its international bailouts.
Mitsotakis’ New Democracy party won 39.8% of the vote, giving him 158 seats in the 300-member parliament, a comfortable governing majority. Tsipras’ Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, garnered 31.5%. The extremist right-wing Golden Dawn, Greece’s third largest party during the height of the financial crisis, failed to make the 3% threshold to enter parliament. [emphasis mine]
This conservative victory probably is more about with the pain caused during Greece’s recent financial crisis, under leftist rule, and less about rejecting leftist policies. Greece had become bankrupt after decades of bad policy at the top by everyone, and the tough love required to get them out of that hole was almost certainly the reason the left lost.
Still, this election continues a general worldwide trend in the world’s democracies, whereby the voters reject the status quo by throwing an incumbent out of office for a new face. The trend also suggests that the new face has a golden opportunity to change that status quo, in a radical manner.
Note that the status quo for the past half century has been increased centralized power by governments. Can anyone guess what a change from that would be?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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