ATHENS — Politicians hate yielding power, but more ruling Socialists are calling for an emergency coalition government rather than backing Prime Minister George Papandreou’s deeply hated austerity measures in recession-hit Greece.
In growing numbers, Socialist lawmakers are calling for an end to their single-party government, unable to face their angry constituents after two years of punishing hikes in taxes and cuts in pensions, jobs and salaries.
Pressed hard by Mr. Papandreou, parliament recently approved some of the harshest cuts since the financial crisis began in order to appease international creditors and keep Greece solvent.
For many, it was a step too far, just two days after rioting outside parliament left one man dead and nearly 200 wounded. Unions staged a 48-hour general strike that shut down schools, shops, offices and transportation across the country.
“Papandreou now has large sections of society against him,” said Spyros Tritsas, chief editor of the weekly current-affairs magazine Epikaira, which has been critical of the prime minister’s handling of the crisis.
The Socialists themselves are showing increasing signs of discontent as popular support for their party continues to plunge.
Greeks are heading into a fourth year of recession, with 16.5 percent unemployment and a rapidly expanding class of poor. Now they face more emergency tax increases, pension cuts and steep levies on their homes.
One prominent government deputy choked back tears before voting for the tough measures this month and promised that she would never again bow to leadership pressure. Others said they simply had had enough.
“At this point, we have reached our limit. No [party] can carry this burden alone. There must be an emergency government that will be in power for as long as is required,” Socialist legislator Nikos Salagiannis said.
Four other Socialists during the debate also openly demanded that Mr. Papandreou hold talks with opposition parties on an emergency power-sharing deal.
In the end, lawmakers approved the latest round of cuts, but the vote gnawed at Mr. Papandreou’s grip on power midway through his four-year term in office.
The Greek political crisis has erupted as European leaders grapple over proposed solutions to stop the eurozone debt crisis from spreading from the three smaller nations that have received bailouts - Greece, Ireland and Portugal - to major economies that are struggling, such as Italy and Spain.
Since May 2010, Greece has been surviving on rescue loans worth $152 billion from the International Monetary Fund and the 16 other European nations that use the euro as their currency.
Greece has tried to meet deficit-cutting demands mainly by raising taxes, arguing that structural reforms to ease long-term spending on health care and its bloated public sector will take longer to show results.
Attempts at cross-party support for Greece’s recovery effort have fallen flat.
Opposition parties on the left and right oppose the measures as unfair and doomed to fail, while the government says it must meet its commitments because each quarterly rescue loan installment is essential to prevent a chaotic default.
The austerity has hammered Greece’s once-booming private sector.
Since the debt crisis started in late 2009, more than 275,000 people have lost their jobs and store closures have exceeded 20 percent in some parts of Athens and other cities.
“The government is heading toward a state of collapse because it is unable to stop the rapid decline in people’s living standards,” Mr. Tritsas said.
“The middle class is being pulled apart, as the measures are now hurting average people and small businesses who had little financial reliance on the state.”
A poll commissioned by his magazine and published in mid-October found that 81 percent of respondents thought Greece’s financial situation had become “much worse” in the past 12 months.
Fifty-five percent said they would be unable to pay the new emergency taxes. Nearly nine out of 10 Greeks now disagree with Mr. Papandreou’s policies in general.
The Socialists won the 2009 election by a landslide, with nearly 44 percent of the vote and a 10-seat majority in the 300-member parliament. Rival conservatives were widely discredited for corruption scandals, tipping Greece into recession and hiding the true extent of the country’s economic troubles.
Two years later, seven of Mr. Papandreou’s deputies have become anti-government independents. Three others have quit politics because of their opposition to the austerity measures.
“If those three deputies had not given up their seats in parliament, the government would already have fallen,” Mr. Tritsas said. “Do I think the Socialists themselves could bring down the government? I think it’s likely. It’s hard to see [early] elections being avoided.”
He added that he did not expect deeply entrenched dominance by the country’s two main parties to disappear, but he predicted those parties would be forced to reinvent themselves.
Support for the Socialists has sunk to about 20 percent, according to recent opinion polls that give the conservatives a double-digit lead.
Labor unions, once a pillar of Socialist support, are openly calling for the government to go.
“This government has ignored the popular uprising by approving this terrible law,” said Ilias Iliopoulos, secretary-general of the civil servant union, Adedy.
“Our answer is: Get out as fast as you can. There is no place for you in Greece any longer.”
Meanwhile, the remaining 153 members of Mr. Papandreou’s parliamentary group dread weekend visits to their constituencies, as they face egg-throwing opposition-organized groups of “angry citizens.”
Cellphone videos of the attacks have been posted frequently on the Internet and shown on television.
“We have been insulted, mocked, heckled and assaulted,” said Socialist lawmaker Andreas Triantafilopoulos.
“That’s because we’ve had to shoulder the weight of these reforms alone.”
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