A pressure cooker environment is escalating as the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) is pushing for more measures demanded by Greece’s creditors (EC, ECB, ESM, IMF) while farmers are battling to protect their rights. Threats that the country will be cut in two are escalating as blocks are sprouting around the country with tractors and other farm equipment intermittently stopping traffic and key points on the national road network.

The anger has made SYRIZA deputies persona non grata and regional areas. Their efforts to meet with producers and talk with representatives of the agriculture sector have met with anger and jeering.

Characteristic was the case of Larissa deputy Nikos Papadopoulos and Theodoros Parastatidis who were almost “lynched” in their attempts to meet with farmers.

Papadopoulos’ appearance at the block at Nikaia, Larissa, fuelled an already tense climate. The mere sight of a deputy of the ruling party caused resentment and slogans against him as angry farmers pointed out that the policies being applied were nothing like the ones that SYRIZA had pledged when a young Alexis Tsipras as opposition leader had climbed on a tractor with promises of tearing the bailout. Instead, the opposite has been true.

“Aren’t you ashamed to be here? You were with us and now you have placed a noose around our necks!” yelled farmers at the SYRIZA representative. “Quit! Get out of here. You have no right to be with farmers. Shame on you. You just like your seat. Quit if you want to be here!”

Similar scenes were noted on Friday night at Kilkis when SYRIZA deputy Theodoros Parastatidis went to the Workers Center for a meeting with the region’s unionists and local factions in an effort to secure regional funding.

A group of 50 farmers from the tractors road block at Kilkis stormed into the hall shouting slogans, “Farmer fight, with all your blood and might”. The farmers demanded that deputies take a stand on the new social security issue being tabled in Parliament.