Sniping adds insult to injury
The Siemens scandal, in which a number of Greek executives and politicians are suspected of having accepted bribes from the German electronics firm in order for the latter to secure lucrative state contracts, has shed light on some of our political system’s most obnoxious aspects, and what rankles public opinion most is the ease with which fundamental institutions, such as the justice system, can either be abused to further specific goals or overlooked entirely. Equally sad to see is the image of a government whose members are busy accusing one another, in public, over the fact that the main suspects in the scandal are not in Greece and are not available to testify in the judicial probe into the affair. There is little more distasteful for the public than the offhand way in which the country’s two biggest parties appear to delight in the mud-flinging bonanza. Elections for the European Parliament are just around the corner and maybe such a frenzy in the political world is only to be expected. But the parties should under no circumstances be surprised when the public becomes outraged at their recent antics.
