2024-04-10 00:43:34
In an awkward atmosphere and under the fear of abstention, which last year broke all records reaching almost 60%, the student elections are being held today in the universities of the whole country. The overturning of the Memorandum was a dominant slogan during the pre-election period and a key topic for discussion at the “tables”. Only this year, the interest of the factions began to turn again to the “internal” problems of the institutions, as a consequence of the economic crisis and the harsh political austerity adopted by the government.
Even the PASP took care to separate its position from the ruling party to which it belongs, with its representatives commenting, wherever they are and wherever they stand, that “we must raise the flag of the struggle in the face of the nightmare of the deep recession, the explosion of unemployment and the creation of social inequalities”. Speaking to “democracy”, Michalis Nikiforos, secretary of PASP, notes that “the faction joins its voice with all citizens who consider the measures unfair and calls for immediate justice by clarifying all the scandals and confiscating the properties of those politicians who misused public money ».
The problems of Higher Education, which will be exacerbated by the bill for university and technological institutions that the Ministry of Education will bring to the Parliament in the coming period, are highlighted with greater intensity by the DAP faction.
At the same time, it sounds the alarm in front of the wild moods of the government and the Ministry of Education for a complete degradation of Education. “Higher Education could not be unaffected by the economic crisis that has overshadowed the lives of all of us and the first blow was already given with the infamous circular of the ministry” says Alexandros Polychronakis, member of the DAP-NDFK secretariat, to “d”.
He also comments that even worse days are coming for university and technological institutions, since “the government’s intentions to abolish and merge departments have begun to be revealed”.
The Students’ Struggle Front (MAS) is also asking for “companies to be unfastened from the schools” in order for Higher Education to remain public and free. “We demand full and stable work, rights for all and support measures for working students” notes Dimitris Vitalis, a member of the executive secretariat of MAS, who sees that the economic crisis has dramatically affected young people, who are forced to work and they study at the same time.
The Left Unity (AREN) also focuses its criticism on the cuts promoted at universities. For Petros Santamouris, a member of the faction, the great wounds of Higher Education are the reduction of textbooks and the imposition of tuition fees, “which set a series of financial barriers and aim to displace the great mass of Greek youth”.
This year’s student elections could not be without, however, the conflicts between the factions, which accuse each other, resulting in “all against all”. At the same time, the student community is increasingly moving away from the polls, something that the representatives of the factions admit, saying directly that “we are not optimistic about the attendance of students”. As they also admit that they are also responsible for the disrespect shown by young people in recent years in the process of student elections.
As Dimitris Vitalis characteristically points out, “the dissolving situation in the movement and the associations in general also contributes to this”.
And this year the left factions are consumed and competing as to which will have the most aggressive tactics against the two dominant factions. At the same time, the DAP-NDFK focuses its criticism on the essential issue of the daily life of young people, accusing PASP of a lack of proposals, positions and actions on the tangible problems of the student community. “The politics of fandom and fanaticism is outside our mentality. The essence is to be at the forefront with ideas and proposals, and that’s what we try to do,” says Alexandros Polychronakis.
“Abstention is convenient for the dominant policy” says Dimitris Vitalis pointing, indirectly but clearly, to DAP-NDFK and PASP. And he goes on to blame the two factions: “What they seek is whoever they cannot make active, they want him to be their passive defender.” DAP-NDFK and PASP are also in the crosshairs for AREN. According to Petros Santamouris, their political confrontation ends “in the expansion of their customer service networks for students”. The faction puts up with PASP even more because it aligns with the government’s choices and promotes a process of “depoliticization” within the Greek university.
This year’s elections at a critical juncture for the future of the Greek university
It seems, however, that the factions finally find one and only common point: the importance of this year’s student elections. Alexandros Polychronakis characterizes the elections as “undoubtedly the most critical of recent years as the political scene is fluid and everything is confusing”. Petros Santamouris also agrees with this finding: “The elections are being held at a critical juncture for the future of the Greek university. What is at stake is the validation or not of the government plans that aim to have little access to Higher Education”.
Michalis Nikiforos also speaks of a “historic turning point” underlining that “the university as an organic part of society is going through its most difficult period in terms of survival and maintaining its public, research and academic character”. It remains to be seen if in the face of the criticality of the situation, which all factions admit, they will manage to issue joint results.
INFO
- More than 450,000 students are invited to vote today in the student elections.
- Students who want to go to the polls should have their ID and pass with them.
- The polls open at 08.00 and close at 19.00.
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