By Pantelis Boukalas

The worst thing for a government is not provoking complaints or anger among the electorate, for this is almost a foregone conclusion...

Infinitely worse than this is provoking the ridicule of voters and becoming the focus of derision in cafes, street markets, taxis, soccer stadiums, virtually everywhere.

And the truth is that with the fiasco of the postponement of May Day celebrations and the debate about whether it constituted a public holiday or day of strike action, the government gave the public the ideal opportunity to mock it richly.

This was not the first time that government officials have failed to settle a simple dispute. They displayed similar incompetence in handling the crisis with the LAFKA fund, with the new law curbing media barons’ access to state contracts, and with last year’s fatal crash of the Chinook army helicopter.

We hear them telling the television cameras that they “need coordination” and wonder to whom they are appealing, which minister has to reconcile with his deputy minister and which alternate minister with the general secretary. All they are doing is giving the recently ousted PASOK leaders the opportunity to trumpet their ostensibly populist inanities...

And the government — evidently unprepared for all this and simply happy to be in power — reacts to criticism as if it were still in opposition...