OPINION

Wishful thinking

Those government and Socialist party cadres who think that the current period should be witnessing a clear government comeback in opinion polls must have strange views about politics and society. Why should the citizens of a society beset by so many big problems express their satisfaction with an administration that disappoints them on a daily basis? Senior government officials have not yet realized that public relations alone cannot guarantee a positive relationship between the government and the public, or at least a majority of it. Preoccupied with the potential yields of their each initiative at the PR level, officials are blind to the worsening conditions for workers, productive citizens, pensioners, unemployed youth, the residents of borderline areas and the inhabitants of the Attica basin, for whom everyday existence has become unbearable. When the country is facing so many economic and social problems, when the government – after the talk about a «powerful Greece» – struggles to draft a budget that is based on blatant fabrications, when it distributes money from the public coffers to serve its political interests, how can the people possibly be pleased because the government has finally closed the royal property issue? The jobless young man, the pensioner who has to queue for hours at the Social Security Foundation (IKA), the parent who pays a fortune for his child’s supposedly free education – will they give the government a good mark merely because the prime minister is in a rush to accept the Annan plan so that Cyprus’s EU accession can proceed smoothly? The government should be happy to be lagging New Democracy by a mere 7 percent. If ND had avoided some crucial mistakes in the past, if it had offered a more substantial opposition in some areas, the margin of difference would now be much wider.

Subscribe to our Newsletters

Enter your information below to receive our weekly newsletters with the latest insights, opinion pieces and current events straight to your inbox.

By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.