OPINION

Time to leave the blame game behind

Responsibility is part and parcel of politics. It is ubiquitous. But the results of politicians’ actions are only judged by the voters, rather than the politicians themselves. For example, the Greek people hold both the major political parties responsible for the current state of public administration, particularly PASOK which governed the country for 20 years and less the New Democracy party, which in a few months’ time will have been in power for three years. At least that is what the opinion polls are saying. Over the past few days, both the government and opposition have unfortunately entered into a debate that leads nowhere. Fighting over the question of political responsibility for the scandal on the Competitiveness Commission brings to mind the medieval arguments as to the sex of angels. They are pointless. Political responsibility is in any case not a tangible object. It is something that is judged silently by the Greek people, who at the end of every government’s four-year term of office weigh the balance of responsibility of all parties, and then make up their own minds. Public debate should not be caught up in the vicious cycle as to the existence or non-existence of political responsibility. That is attributed no matter what happens. We have to move on to an institutional debate as to how to limit these kinds of phenomena. That is what the parties should focus on and for which they must propose solutions. For, as the prime minister rightly said, corruption is a problem that goes across the board. It is there that the effort should be made to limit it.

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