Greek referendum shines light on divisions after five-year misery

By Karolina Tagaris and Deepa Babington ELEFSINA, Greece/ATHENS (Reuters) - Georgia Golemi, a pharmacy owner, plans to oppose international bailout terms in a Greek referendum on Sunday, while Michalis Fioravantes, a state-funded teacher, says he will vote for them. Their stances, counterintuitive in the bitter debate over market reforms raging between Greece and its creditors, show how unpredictable the vote is likely to be in a country where financial disintegration has blurred traditional distinctions. Greece's creditors say the reforms they are seeking should stabilise its finances by making it easier to do business and cutting back a public sector they consider too big a drain. That should encourage people like Golemi to vote yes and Fioravantes to vote no. But Golemi says competition from nearby supermarkets under liberalisation measures imposed in return for earlier bailout aid are driving her business to the wall. She now keeps the pharmacy open 13 hours a day to make ends meet, afraid to raise prices to improve her margins because people in her town outside Athens, where almost every shop on the main street is boarded up, cannot afford to pay more. "I will vote no because I used to believe, when I started studying, that I would have a better life. I've reached 50 and realise that this better life does not exist," she said. Fioravantes for his part, fears a no vote will mean he will not be able to get hold of the medicine he needs: daily injections of an imported drug to treat his multiple sclerosis. His salary has been cut by a third over the past five years from 1,250 euros (885 pounds) to 888 euros, but the closure of banks and imposition of capital controls in recent days has made him think things could get worse if Greece rejects the bailout, something its creditors say would be a vote to leave the eurozone. "I'm afraid we're not going to have any salary at all if we leave the euro." OPINION SHIFTS In a poll released on Wednesday, 54 percent of Greeks showed that they would heed the advice of leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and vote against new tough conditions for financial aid in the hope that creditors would compromise. But a breakdown of the results of the poll, taken from Sunday to Tuesday, showed Greeks' resolve to vote against the bailout terms eroding after Monday’s shutdown of the banks. Since then, people have been waiting in long lines at ATMs to take out their daily ration of 60 euros a day, the government’s new limit on bank withdrawals, as rumours swirl that banknotes are running short. Analysts say the yes camp could gain momentum over the next few days. Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Athens over the past two days to support each side. The rallies urging a 'yes' vote, supported by the conservative opposition, have drawn many working professionals and pensioners, while the 'no' rallies have drawn many unemployed and public servants. Ultimately it depends on whether people feel they have something to lose. In Golema's town, Elefsina, northwest of Athens, home to Greece's largest oil refiner, many people do not think they have. "The European Union doesn't care if I have money or not," says Leonidas Tsiros, who has spent his time drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes in a cafe here since he lost his job in 2010. "And I don't care anymore if we leave Europe," he said as other men in the cafe backed him up with cries of "No!". Both Tsiros and Golemi have daughters who plan to go abroad to try to find work, leaving family and friends behind a town where more than one in four people are without a job – higher than the national average. Dozens of factories have shut and hundreds of workers at the shipyard have staged frequent protests due to months of unpaid wages. "That's what we've been going through, 600 families, for five years now," said Dimitris Mavronasos, a 42-year-old shipyard worker, who says many of his colleagues are sleeping in their cars in the parking lot. HISTORY LESSONS In Athens, for many people things are not much better, but Fioravantes and others supporting a "yes" vote conjure visions of wartime conditions if the bailout is rejected. "It will take Greece back to the times of my father and mother who lived during the German occupation," he said. "I grew up listening to stories of hunger and death. If we leave the euro, this will happen in a different form but the outcome will be the same." Vaso Katsakiori, 40, a small business owner, has similar fears. As co-owner of a market research firm that is commissioned to do surveys for telecom and other companies, she has gradually lost business as Greece lurched into its latest impasse with creditors. Her firm had about 10 projects on the go a few months ago but that shrank to about 6 over the past month and then on Monday - the first day of bank closures - all her clients called to say they were freezing all the projects. "It's like being in a pre-war period," she said. Many others at a pro-euro rally this week said Greece needed to stay in the euro for future generations. "I'm demonstrating for the future of my kids and their future. We believe in Europe, we trust Europe and we want Europe. Our life is in Europe so we're going to vote yes,” said Alexandros Stavrou, 42, who came to the rally with his eight and six-year-old children. In Elefsina, a grass-roots crowd was gathering as well. Dinos Roussis, an engineer who owns a business that repairs refrigerators, says his town could not afford real flyers and banners to push for a no vote. So he took some A3 paper, scribbled NO slogans on it, and made 1,500 copies which he handed out at the local market. Roussis, a tall man with a wide smile, says he has had to downsize his business over the past five years, firing eight people. He is keeping the company going, so he doesn’t have to fire the last two. He says it is a matter of pride for Greece – a country that withstood war occupation and a military junta – to stand up to creditors’ demands. "We lived through the junta, we fought it. Historically and logically I will vote no." "I'm not scared of leaving the euro. Greece and Europe existed long before the euro and they will after the euro. The (end of the) euro is not the end of the world." (Writing by Alessandra Galloni; editing by Philippa Fletcher)