People expect more
Sunday’s European Parliament election reflected discontent with the conservative New Democracy government in Greece, but without pointing to an alternative. Citizens – those who voted and those who did not, en masse – expect more.
The message was that the 41% they gave the government in last year’s national elections meant that they had greater demands – it was not a signal to the administration that it could rest on its laurels and smugly bask in its victory.
The party in power and those in the running for the top job also have a duty to sit down and carefully look into why the protest vote was so strong.
They need to understand why they were shunned rather than just dismissing low voter turnout and playing it down.
They need to examine the real problems that made the sirens of populism so attractive to so many citizens.
