Amateur hour in Parliament
Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) leader Giorgos Karatzaferis is ?thinking? about withdrawing his party from Parliament, because this action will — in his opinion — slap the system back to life and may even prompt general elections. Thinking is such a great pastime. And the paradox uttered by Karatzaferis on a morning television show came as a welcome break because the truth is that the political atmosphere is really bleak and the public is in a state of catatonia.
If withdrawing LAOS?s parliamentary representatives means that they will abstain from the parliamentary process, then we are looking at a classic case of sinecurism, which, of course, does not lead to a purging of the system.
If, on the other hand, Karatzaferis?s objective is to convince the elected parliamentarians of his party to resign, along with the 12 officials in local authorities who were elected as representatives by the party, then he will merely prompt a new round of elections in those areas and the positions will be filled by the party that holds the majority.
There is no doubt that Karatzaferis already knows all of this; you don?t need to be a constitutional expert for that. The simple fact is that on the first day of June, the head of LAOS decided to introduce amateur hour to the political debate. Well done. And now we can move full speed back to the days of political revues at the Green Park Theater and the artistically delightful Giorgos Economides. He gets his cast off the stage and sends his MPs to sit among the audience or, rather, among the ?indignant? citizens in Syntagma Square.
We look with some sympathy at Karatzaferis?s effort to be in the political limelight. We also understand that the passing of the so-called memorandum did not go down well with his fans, while supporting a new memorandum may strengthen a tendency among them to flee close to the center of the political spectrum. Right-wing populism and liberalism of a British nature are not compatible concepts, so maybe this explains why he came up with the ?solution? of withdrawing his party.
At times of crisis and decline, everyone has an opinion, everyone has an idea and a solution, and unfortunately we waste our time paying them heed. We can expect more interesting and other creative proposals from Karatzaferis the deeper we wade into the crisis and into the summer.
