By Nikos Nikolaou

During the 1930s, Efstathia, the wife of Kalamata banker Ioannis Kostopoulos made out her will, dividing her estate into six parts to leave to her five children – her son Stavros was to receive two parts, one for himself and one to spend on his political career. That’s what politics was like in those days.

Children of wealthy families studied abroad and entered politics out of pure ambition, squandering their fortunes to pay for setting up offices, travelling around the country and the other expenses involved. Former prime minister Stefanos Stefanopoulos had been from a very wealthy family but when he passed away, his friends organized a collection to cover the expenses for his funeral.

Today there are still honest ministers and parliamentary deputies who set an example, but unfortunately there are also those who have no skills, are products of the party machine and who enter politics to get rich.

Why has no one tried to stop these people? Even a prime minister like Costas Simitis, an honorable politician, tolerated a veritable orgy of corruption, particularly during his second term of office. When in 2001 Theodoros Pangalos charged that “ministers are getting rich from public funds,” why didn’t he take steps to get rid of them? There have been many such accusations. No evidence is required – sadly, one look at the way they live is proof enough.

The late Theodoros Karatzas once said that the theft of public funds was bad enough but what was worse was the blatant behavior of the guilty parties, their ostentatious lifestyle.

It is equally impossible to comprehend why our current prime minister Costas Karamanlis, who himself has a modest lifestyle, turns a blind eye to the nouveau-riche habits of his ministers who move into luxury villas in Ekali and the Aegean islands, travel about on luxury yachts and take extended holidays on Myconos. Doesn’t he realize that when a government loses the high moral ground it spells certain disaster?