“Like gravity, karma is so basic we
often don't even notice it.”
It is difficult to observe the
events surrounding the non-closure
of ERT and the cabinet reshuffle in Greece with anything other that a sense
of awed despair. Awe, because it is clear just how elegantly history repeats
itself. Despair, because that is the only emotion this continual reshuffling of
political failures in Greece merits.
Last week, the Democratic Left
party withdrew from government, leading Mr. Samaras’ New Democracy (ND) – Pan-Hellenic
Socialist Party (PASOK) coalition with 153 seats in Parliament. Many people
must remember that in 1992, Antonis Samaras was removed as Minister of Foreign
Affairs in the Mitsotakis government, and in 1993 formed “Politiki Anoixi”,
leaving the ND government with a 150 seat majority in 1993. This led to new
elections, which PASOK, under Andreas Papandreou, won. Ironically, the reasons Mr. Samaras left the
government were the issue of FYROM and the privatisation of OTE, the national
telecom.
Call this history repeating itself,
call it karma: Mr. Samaras is now faced with the same slim majority in the
Parliament. And with the need to privatise even more state organisations before
him.
The reshuffle is also a source of
despair. In order to retain the government he has literally spent his life
trying to lead, Mr. Samaras has been forced to give Mr. Venizelos several new places
in Cabinet in an attempt to keep PASOK MPs on side. This is exceptionally
ironic to anyone remembering Mr. Samaras’ virulent attacks on PASOK in the 2012
election campaign: Xrissi
Avgi has posted a useful excerpt here.
The PASOK that Mr. Samaras spent
all 2011 and 2012 condemning as a party of special interests, corruption, and
people whom he couldn’t possibly work with, is now the source of his political
survival. PASOK polls between 4-6%.
The other source of despair is the
fact that the faces in government represent political failures of a magnitude
inconceivable in a normal democracy.
Mr. Venizelos becomes Minister of
Foreign Affairs. It is difficult to describe how much “Benny” is a source of
ridicule in Greece. Perhaps the only other people more derided are George
Papandreou, Mr. Venizelos’ predecessor as head of PASOK, or Mr. Theodoros
Pangalos, a previous foreign minister who’s gargantuan appetites are rivalled
only by his florid prose. Mr. Venizelos turned the Eurozone finance ministers
against him in 2011 and actively campaigned for George Papandreou’s downfall;
we know that he will be entirely absorbed with domestic political events; we
know that Greece needs a real foreign minister, not a placeholder.
Mr. Simos Kedikoglou, the
Government Spokesperson, retains his seat. In any normal democracy, a government
spokesman who managed to turn Europe and 65% of Greek public opinion against
him through the illegal closure of the public broadcaster would have the
good sense to resign and head home in abject failure. Not Mr. Kedikoglou. He
retains his seat and perquisites, and will continue to lecture us about
corporate restructurings that he knows nothing about.
Mr. Adonis Georgiades,
a former deputy for LAOS who was absorbed into New Democracy in the recent
electoral crisis, was nominated Minister of Public Health. Mr. Adonis is
familiar for his rants on TeleAsty in which he would sell literature like a
shoe salesman. To put it mildly, he has as much understanding of running the
bankrupt Public Health ministry as I have of piloting the space shuttle. He
will have to deal with thousands of highly qualified doctors and specialists,
who are at the front line of the social collapse in Greece, for whom he has
absolutely no empathy, and whom he will not be able to lead. He will have to
continue reforms in the public procurement system, which is dominated by
special interests and corruption. This is not a post where you learn on the
job.
And in an inexplicable decision,
Mr. Pantelis Kapsis, a journalist for the MEGA TV station owned by a major
public works oligarch, has been appointed deputy minister for the restructuring
of the public broadcaster. While I
have nothing against Mr. Kapsis personally, it is simply inconceivable how a
journalist working for a channel like MEGA, or indeed any private sector
channel in Greece, can be appointed to restructure the public broadcaster.
This cabinet reshuffle exhibits all
the signs of the political pathologies that affect Greece. Ministers have been
appointed who have a record of political failure or of conflicts of interest in
an attempt to consolidate internal political support. Its raison d’etre is internal
political survival of two literally bankrupt political parties, who live in
their own bubble and cannot possibly understand the real challenges of Greek
society and the economy.
Its leaders, with few exceptions,
are career politicians or from the tangled web of media and the public
sector. Many only know politics: Mr. Samaras finished his Harvard degree in
1977, returned to Greece, and entered politics in an inherited seat in Messinia. Mr. Venizelos made his political bones defending Andreas
Papandreou in the latter’s corruption trial in the Greek parliament.
It fails to create any sign of hope
or inspiration that this government has a plan to reverse the decline. It is
marked by choices of desperation rather than the true political courage needed
to handle the issues at hand.
Mr. Samaras bought the survival
of his government and his current term as prime minister. Mr. Venizelos bought
the survival of his political party, which is on the brink of collapse and
expulsion from Parliament. Both share in the spoils of government for a few
more months.
Few foreign observers, and
certainly few voters, understand the real reasons why the vaunted “Greek reform
programme” is failing. But anyone with a real understanding of who makes the
decisions, and how these decisions are made, cannot fail to comprehend this.
The choice of the present cabinet is a case in point. And the future of the
country is preordained.
© Philip Ammerman, 2013
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