Greeks' fury over economic crisis close to boiling point

When the sun rises over Aigio, the waters in the Gulf of Corinth shimmer seductively. Shrouded in mist, the mountains that rise out of it appear almost to float as ancient olive trees glisten in the morning rays.

But along the winding road into the town - past piles of uprooted train tracks, empty shop fronts and closed factories - beauty gives way to ruin. And in the cafeneia, stony-faced men say Greece is heading for catastrophe.

"The only thing we know is economic crisis," sighs Apostolos Karafotias, who has served as Mayor of the Peloponnesian town for the past four years.

"People are really disappointed, fearful and - let me find the right word for it - yes, furious, with politicians they believe are firmly to blame for our awful financial situation."

Aigio's anger is being echoed across Greece as the nation prepared to vote in critical local elections yesterday.

The poll is the Government's first test at the ballot box since being swept to power 13 months ago, but it might not be making so many waves had it not been cast as a referendum on the draconian austerity measures enacted in the debt-stricken country in exchange for €110 billion ($194 billion) in emergency aid from the EU and IMF.

But after a week that saw tensions heightened by a parcel bombing campaign, Prime Minister George Papandreou has raised the stakes. Amid deepening opposition to the reforms, he has threatened to call snap elections if his socialist Pasok Party suffers a "debilitating" defeat.

That prospect has sparked heady debate and polls suggest a socialist victory is far from assured.

"Here young people, the ones most affected by unemployment, are so disgusted with our politicians that at least half of them are definitely going to abstain from the vote," says Karafotias, who is not seeking re-election.

"Every day I get educated Greeks, who have studied abroad, who have postgraduate degrees, asking for jobs, any job, even if it means collecting the garbage."

Joblessness in Aigio, whose population is about 22,000, hovers at about 20 per cent.

The decline in employment has come alongside tax rises and spending cuts that have seen the average wage and pension reduced by almost a fifth. The lack of prospects has prompted a growing number to want to flee. "Greece is not a place for young people," says Nella Ioannou, who at 32 is forced to hold down two jobs to make ends meet. "The system eats them up."

Statistics show that, on average, locals in Aigio earn less than €10,000 a year, the lowest per capita income in Greece. In the absence of a thriving tourist trade, residents depend on three heavily guarded buildings in the hills outside town where workers produce rifles, small arms, bullet casings and other weapons. Now, as the Government seeks to trim military spending, even they look likely to go.

For Nikos Koklas, a prominent trade unionist, the threat of that closure hangs over Aigio like a cloud. "The workforce has already been scaled back from 1000 to 300 employees and if they lose their jobs, too, it will have a huge knock-on effect," he says. "It's not fair that pensioners and low-income workers, who never caused this crisis, should have to carry the burden of paying for it ... Why hasn't the Government cracked down on tax evasion, or put corrupt politicians behind bars, or made the church pay taxes? Greece is a boiling cauldron and at some point it is going to overheat. It is going to explode."

Few governments have attempted to modernise the country as much as the current administration, with pensions being overhauled, labour laws rewritten and policy decisions put online for the first time. The tradition of patronage has also begun to wither as politicians gradually abandon the practice of dispensing jobs for votes. But the country still has a long way to go.

"On a scale of one to 100, I would say that we have covered about 5 per cent of the ground we need to travel," says the Pasok MP Costas Spiliopoulos, who hails from Aigio.

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