Greek riots enter sixth day, threaten government

The center-right party currently governing Greece may soon find itself in an election and in poor shape to win it, thanks to six days of rioting stemming from the death of a teenage boy at the hands of police.  The riots started when a bullet hit the head of the boy.  Rioters claim the officer fired directly at the boy; the cop says he fired a warning shot that ricocheted into his head.  Either way, the death has become a secondary issue as the rioters protest Greece’s failing economy:

Gangs of high school students hurled stones and fire bombs at police stations in Athens suburbs on Thursday, in a sixth day of anti-government violence since the police shooting of a teenager.

Central Athens was calmer than in previous days as people returned to work after a 24-hour general strike on Wednesday called by unions opposed to pension reforms and privatizations.

Trouble flared before dawn in Athens when students occupying the university clashed with police. By mid-morning, it spread to 15 police stations, from upmarket neighborhoods of north Athens to the working-class south. …

A left-wing rally was due later in central Athens, more protests were announced for Friday and Monday, and many Greeks asked how much longer the government could remain in power.

“The government has shown it cannot handle this. If police start imposing the law everyone will say the military junta is back,” said Yannis Kalaitzakis, 49, an electrician. “The government is stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

First, the explanation given by the police hardly relieves the officer of responsibility.  Warning shots can be lethal even without an accidental ricochet, because what goes up must come down, and at a deadly velocity. Bullets fired in the air come back to Earth, which people seem to forget at New Years Eve and other celebrations.  They kill randomly, accounting for an occasional homicide even here in the US.  That’s why, contrary to what Hollywood puts in movies and television shows, police here don’t fire warning shots, in the air or anywhere else.

However justified the outrage over this death was, though, it appears that the opposition to the New Democracy party has decided to take advantage of it for electoral purposes.   The socialists of the various opposition parties, including the largest, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, only have a one-seat minority to the New Democracy Party.  The government of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis has already been hit by the economic tribulations that have sent the global economy reeling.  The unions staged a strike and plan more protest rallies to encourage enough instability to force Karamanlis to resign.

We can expect more of this as the economy worsens over the next several months.  Economic upheaval usually leads to political realignment, especially in parliamentary systems.  Karamanlis will eventually have to hold an election, and he can expect to shift to the opposition for a while until Greeks figure out that socialism will only make their plight worse.