Yesterday, 4th of October, general elections were held in Greece. Despite only one out of every three Greeks rejecting their right to vote, the politicians claimed that the Greek people have spoken. New Democracy, the former governing party has lost with 33,48% against PASOK, the socialist party, which won with a strong majority of 43,93% , occupying now 160 seats in the parliament. The new Prime Minister will be the PASOK’s party leader George Papandreou, son of former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. The rest of the parliamentary seats will be occupied by 15 parliamentarians from LAOS the exteme right wing party, which saw a 50% increase of his power, 13 by the SYN coalition of radical left party candidates, and finally 21 seats are devoted to the KKE communist party parliamentarians.

At the same time the now former Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned yesterday from the position of the leader of New Democracy and called his party to elect a new leader. So far three are the candidates: the former Foreign Minister Dora Mpakogianni, the former Minister of Health Dimitris Avramopoulos and Antonios Samaras, former Minister of Culture.

The strongest candidate for party leader seems to be the former Foreign Minister, Dora Mpakogianni, who is the daughter of Konstantinos Mitsotakis, former Prime Minister. She has all the necessary support, ambition and interparty connections to become the new leader and apparently a candidate for the Prime Minister position, in the next elections.
There are several points worth attention. The fact that New Democracy would lose came as no surprise. Corruption scandals have been increasing with geometrical pace in Greece, as well as high public dissatisfaction due to the economic crisis and the fiscal deterioration. The new Prime Minister has to face these challenges and take hard decisions. He has the majority to do so. At his speech yesterday he stressed that the only guiding line to this policies is going to be the citizen and only the citizen. That is going to be even more worrying, bringing to my mind possible debt expansion for social provision, which is often linked with socialist parties.

Greek people do not need someone to pamper them. They need someone to discipline them and be committed to his programme. They are disappointed. They seek a change, but at the same time they need someone to implement it, someone with not only strong majority in the parliament, but also with strong clear cut political speech. No complex messages and programmes. Within this context, LAOS the extreme right wing party is a new alternative, although not fresh at all, into the political debate.
This dramatic increase in the extreme party’s power, while a socialist party wins the elections, seems ironic. Is Greek society becoming polarised? The answer is no. The lack of alternative choices helps shed light on the mystery. Most candidates are offspring of former politicians. And although there is nothing bad about this in itself, they somehow most of them are below the situation and the glory their forebears had. Thus, between the worst, I choose the best, or I do not choose at all. That also explains the rise of abstentions as well. We are witnessing a degradation of the political system in Greece: public indifference.
Another key issue that can explain the situation is the Greek political system that limits political choices. Although it allows the identification of who is responsible for what, and thus its punishment, it does not allow for political renewal. Two major parties have monopolised and kept power over the last 25 years, PASOK and New Democracy. The same story is repeated over and over again in every election: “We need a strong majority to implement our programme”.

That argument has serious implications. Firstly, it implies that other parties not only will not collaborate, but actually will oppose any possible governmental policy. The political debate thus in Greece is more negative and competitive than collaborative in nature. This way, Greek politicians, in a mainly artificially constructed antagonism, exclude weak but viable choices from voters’ minds. The right choice for the voter is automatically to vote for the strongest party, so that actually any policy to be able to survive in the wild world of the Greek Parliament. This is also because subconsciously in the voter’s mind memories of political instability, deriving from the Greek civil war and the Greek junta, serve to see strong governments more highly valued and equate them with governmental efficiency and effectiveness.

So, here we are with strong but ineffective government, which leads to a democratic dictatorship. Let’s move forward towards our old choices.