Atop the Acropolis, voter fury trips up Communists

Page last updated at 08:16 GMT, Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 13:16 EST

Reuters:

General Secretary of the Greek Communist Party Aleka Papariga (C) addresses a group of marble workers during an election...

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It was meant to be a picture-perfect election campaign stop: Greece's communist leader striding across the ancient Acropolis to rally marble workers painstakingly restoring a symbol of Greece's past splendour.

Instead, Aleka Papariga's pre-election visit this week became memorable for all the wrong reasons: blue-collar workers heckled to ask why she failed to block spending cuts; others drowned her out by yelling she was part of the same self-serving political system her party claims to fight.

"You should have made a difference!" shouted one worker. Another jumped in to yell: "I read in the newspaper that you lawmakers get higher salaries because of the crisis!"

In many ways, the campaign rally gone wrong was emblematic not only of the Communists' failure to tap into disillusionment among voters, but also of the virulent anger Greeks feel towards an entire political class they see as corrupt and fraudulent.

With Greeks grappling with sharply lower wages and pensions and an economy mired in its fifth year of recession, campaigning for national elections on May 6 has stumbled to a surly start.

Read the whole story: Reuters