Past, present and future
Statisticians, commentators, analysts and politicians will be poring over the election results today hoping to find a defining piece of evidence that proves beyond doubt what it is that drives Greek politics today. Whatever the numbers may show, the truth is that the answers can be found by picking apart the remains of the brief but frantic election campaign we experienced over the last month. «Conservative prejudices are rooted in a great past, and Liberal ones in an imaginary future,» said A.J. Balfour, who was British prime minister between 1902 and 1905. However, the election campaign saw a reversal of the traditional roles that Balfour described. The ruling conservatives, New Democracy, pledged a new future for Greece. There would be more reforms and no return to the «insecurity» of the past, promised Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. PASOK, on the other hand, harked back to the eras of Andreas Papandreou and Costas Simitis, the two Socialist prime ministers who shaped Greece over the last 25 years or so. Andreas Papandreou had been the man of «change,» his son George wanted to be the man of «new change» but nevertheless felt the need to call Simitis onto the stage at PASOK’s final public rally in Athens last Thursday. Greece’s two main parties may have been looking to a «great past» or an «imaginary future» but their election campaigns made it clear that they are not willing to deal with the uncertain present. The wildfires in the Peloponnese and Evia curtailed the fleeting campaign period but did not prevent politicians from talking endlessly on some topics. On the issues that mattered, however, there was deadly silence. Much was said about the «organized plan,» or lack thereof, that allegedly led to forests being burned. Nothing was said about developing an organized plan to protect the environment or the forests that remain. There was plenty of talk about the failings of the so-called «state mechanism» but no mention of what can be done to make this mechanism resemble more than just a collection of ill-fitting spare parts. We heard a lot about the ills of pension funds investing in structured bonds but hardly anything about what structure will be introduced to ensure that our pensions are paid in the future. There was further furor over the content of a history textbook for primary schoolchildren but no fuss was made about the quality and training of the people that teach these youngsters. The campaign trail may have been short but both main parties steered well clear of the university reforms pothole. Greek teenagers remain unsure of what their future holds. As for health system, the closest we came to a discussion on this issue was speculation about the impact that Archbishop Christodoulos’s absence in the USA for a liver transplant would have on the election. Meanwhile, economic indicators were flashed before our eyes like aces being pulled from the pack but the parties kept their cards close to their chests when it came to telling voters what measures they will take to increase their wages or reduce the cost of living. Unemployment is falling, New Democracy assured voters. A sleight of hand by creative statisticians, claimed PASOK. Neither suggested how the job market might be fairer for young Greeks, women in particular, who remain woefully underused and over-exploited. The election winner, we were told, would manage the economy with aplomb. But just in case we were not convinced, in the final week of the campaign, the party leaders transformed themselves into game show hosts to hand out financial prizes to voters who managed to put a cross in the right box on Sunday. New Democracy and PASOK may have alluded to the «great past» and «imaginary future» that Balfour spoke of but at the end of the campaign, another of the late British prime minister’s sayings comes to mind when searching for the current driving force behind Greek politics: «Nothing matters very much and most things don’t matter at all.»
