Wrong kind of accountability
Faced with the depressingly familiar question «Who exactly is running this country?» Costas Koukodimos, a ruling New Democracy deputy, gave an absurd and offensive reply: television. Faced with allegations that he approached journalist and publisher Themos Anastasiadis to ask him to stop linking Spyros Kladas, head of the financial crimes squad, to the Zachopoulos case, Koukodimos saw no need to turn to the courts, to his party or to Parliament. No, instead he chose to send a letter to Makis Triantafyllopoulos, the investigative journalist making the allegations. Koukodimos’s stance is an insult to the country’s democratic institutions. The Greek public does not elect deputies only to see them explaining themselves on television shows. Those who feel more accountable to TV than political institutions do not belong in Parliament but on television panels. They will probably be of better use there and will certainly be less of an insult to our democracy.
