A no-confidence vote on Greek prime minister George Papandreou, the caller of the referendum is scheduled for Friday.
If he doesn't survive the no-confidence vote, elections may come instead of a referendum. The alternatives are talking of lofty ways to generate extra funds, e.g. identifying tax evaders and fund recovery, instead of deep spending cuts. This approach could take a lot longer to implement. Meanwhile?...
If he does survive the no-confidence vote, the Referendum will be held in January. Note, 60% of Greeks have a negative view of the rescue according to recent polls.
If Greek citizens decide to vote against it, it would be very difficult for the Greeks to stay in the eurozone. Maybe this is the most elegant way of of Greece leaving the eurozone — not members kicking out a country, but the Greeks choosing, through democracy and with legitimacy, to leave.
Europe is staring at a messy and disorderly debt default which could spread financial chaos to other countries such as Spain and Italy and Greece could end up pulling out of the euro as a currency.
Momentum has shifted from the Germans and French to the Greeks!
In between, the KES will strengthen, inflation reduce but the small matter of who remains at the Hague or not in Kenya is decided as well as the slow realization that growth by borrowing from banks by mwananchi is behind us followed in due course by defaults on loans and likely higher unemployment and less investment income.
The next few weeks and months clearly call for due investment caution.
One does hope that in all this, foreign investors could look to African markets like the NSE as an alternative investment option given the poor economic environment back home. However, since we likely in some $hit ourselves, until otherwise, can the Rwandese & Co please rise up!
Again, RSE - cross-list key counters!!!