Cabinet choices are a test
Crucial posts in Greece?s political system are in urgent need of people who are acclaimed in their fields and not professional parliamentarians who are hostage to the ballot box and to every vote.
However, market experts and technocrats with know-how and knowledge to impart are one thing, and advisers or special secretaries who assume ministerial posts in the middle of a major crisis are quite another.
Prime Minister George Papandreou has every right to choose whomever he wants to staff his government, but past experience has shown quite abundantly that some of his choices can be way off the mark. We have seen how some of his ?neophytes? have behaved in an arrogant and rude manner, including to the prime minister himself, while others proved lacking in the circumstances.
The situation is crucial and, as such, the premier must know that his ability and courage as a leader will also be tested by his ability to push away even the closest of his associates when they become a burden and provoke even their own party?s parliamentarians.
